In 1951 a group of artists represented by the legendary American art dealer Betty Parsons gave her an ultimatum. Either she had to drop her wider roster of artists and put all her efforts into boosting their careers or they would walk away. Among them were Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Barnett Newman and Clyfford Still. In other words, the rising stars of abstract expressionism. Parsons’ response: “Sorry, I have to follow my own lights – no.”
Those lights led not only to the progressive gallery she’d opened in midtown Manhattan in 1946 – a launchpad for the New York avant garde – but to her own committed and experimental artistic practice. After spending the working week in the city nurturing other people’s careers, she would retreat at the weekend to her seaside studio in Southold, Long Island, where, over the course of 50 years, she produced hundreds of distinctive paintings and driftwood sculptures that she exhibited throughout her life. It’s fitting then that her first retrospective in Europe is displayed at De La Warr Pavilion on the Sussex coast. Spread across both floors of the concrete building, overlooking the sea, her art feels right at home.
