The newest monograph dedicated to the striking new work of internationally acclaimed abstract painter Suzan Frecon.\nSuzan Frecon features new paintings, which highlight the artist’s ongoing exploration of the interaction of shape, color, texture, and light. Painted over long periods of time, these works are the result of a deliberative process guided by a deep understanding of color and the properties of paint. Frecon has been exploring the issues of horizontality and verticality, asymmetrical balances, and interacting arrangements of color for over five decades. The result is an ongoing dialogue that yields new and surprising paintings at every turn.\nFrecon’s knowledge of color is deeply rooted in art history; her selection of color brings with it an understanding of the scientific properties of pigments as well as their use by Renaissance painters. Esteemed poet and critic John Yau explores this inspiration in his illuminating essay, in which he teases out the connections between these bold abstract works and historic figurative paintings. Highlighting Frecon’s interest in these paintings for their form and color rather than their narrative, Yau offers a new and intriguing way of looking at both present and past.

Suzan Frecon

Arts & Photography

Frecon, Suzan

History & Criticism

David Zwirner Books

The first detailed survey of Swedish artist Hilma af Klint's groundbreaking Tree of Knowledge series "Revelatory and sublime. . . . Her work remains conceptually open enough for viewers to draw their own conclusions, insert their own meaning and feel transported to other glorious worlds." --The New York Times One of the most inventive artists of the twentieth century, af Klint was a pioneer of abstraction. Her first forays into nonobjective painting preceded the work of Kandinsky and Mondrian and radically mined the fields of science and religion. Deeply interested in spiritualism and philosophy, af Klint developed an iconography that explores esoteric concepts in metaphysics, as demonstrated in Tree of Knowledge. This rarely seen series of works on paper renders orbital, enigmatic forms, visual allegories of unification and separateness, darkness and light, beginning and end, life and death, and spirit and matter. Published on the occasion of the exhibition Hilma af Klint: Tree of Knowledge at David Zwirner, New York, in 2021 and David Zwirner, London, in 2022, this book features a text by the art historian Susan Aberth examining af Klint's spiritual and theosophical influences. With a conversation between curator Helen Molesworth and the US Poet Laureate Joy Harjo discussing connections between Tree of Knowledge and Native theories, the publication broadens the scope of philosophical interpretations of af Klint's timeless work. Also included is a newly commissioned essay by the celebrated af Klint scholar Julia Voss, a contribution by the artist Suzan Frecon, and a text by art historian Max Rosenberg that further develops the conversation around why af Klint's work was not recognized in its time.

Hilma af Klint: Tree of Knowledge

Molesworth, Helen

Harjo, Joy

af Klint, Hilma

Aberth, Susan

Rosenberg, Max

For the past four decades, Suzan Frecon has become known for abstract oil paintings and watercolors that avoid facile explanations or recognizable visual associations. Instead, compositions integrate color, surface, and light to create an abstract visual reality that she intends to exist solely on its strength as art. In a deliberative and searching process, she works toward painting that provides a complex, powerful, and inexplicable experience for the viewer. As she has stated, “The physical reality and the spiritual content of my paintings are the same.” oil paintings and sun documents Frecon’s third solo exhibition at David Zwirner in New York, held in 2015, and is the most vivid presentation to date of the artist’s engagement with natural light, the always-varying subtleties of which she integrates into how the painting is created. The focal point of the catalogue is the painstakingly reproduced color plates of fourteen recent paintings, many of which are depicted several times in various types of light and from multiple angles, allowing the reader to experience the work in a way that is more akin to seeing them in person. In addition, it features an illuminating and lively essay by art writer David Cohen, which strives to explain the complexity of viewing and experiencing Frecon’s work. Rounding out the catalogue are numerous details and installation views, atmospheric color photographs of the artist’s studio and materials, and an illustrated visual appendix showing a selection of Frecon’s reference sources for the comprised works, including insightful commentary written by the artist.

Suzan Frecon: oil paintings and sun

The result of a deliberative process guided by careful attention to spatial relationships, Suzan Frecon’s large-scale oil paintings are composed of asymmetrical curves that result in minor and major measured areas of color. Accompanying the artist’s solo exhibitions at David Zwirner, New York and London, in 2017, this publication features a selection of new monumental paintings carefully reproduced both as individual works and in installation views to best convey the experience of seeing the work. Depending on the viewer’s position and the time of day, the contrasts of matte and sheen, positive and negative, and immediacy and radiance combine to create an ongoing visual experience of always varying subtleties. In contrast to the paintings, Frecon’s watercolors, also featured here, engage the relationship between paint and paper support. Each predetermined sheet—often from an agate-burnished old Indian ledger page—has its own innate character, properties, and irregular shape; its creases, holes, blemishes, and even faint writings become an integral component of the final watercolor. “Their truth is the paint,” Frecon says, and in a specially commissioned essay acclaimed art historian Richard Shiff examines the new body of work in relationship to painting and the experience of looking.

Suzan Frecon: painting

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Frecon, Suzan. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Frecon, Suzan

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Frecon, Suzan. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Suzan Frecon

Hilma af Klint: Tree of Knowledge

Suzan Frecon: oil paintings and sun

Suzan Frecon: painting