thenationofartists.com

Grace Hartigan: Shattering Boundaries

Created and produced by Alice Shure and Janice Stanton. Reviewed by Elliot V. Kotek.

Grace Hartigan Shattering Boundaries, which played at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival last year, opens with the quote: “In painting, I try to make some logic out of the world that has been given to me in chaos.” I’m sure many artists identify with the sentiment, painting as a process for coping with, as well as translating and appreciating, their surroundings.

With a running time under forty minutes, the film, in a speedy snapshot, conveys a portrait of the often-overlooked abstract expressionist / figurative pop-artist, Grace Hartigan, for whom artistic success and recognition was, quite literally, a battle of survival affected by matters of the heart.

Labeled early as a painter’s painter in 1950s New York, she was often the only female featured in the major shows of her days. As “one of the boys," she had exhibited early in her career as “George Hartigan” and found inspiration in the works of Mexican artist, Rufino Tamayo,as well as Jackson Pollock, who became a friend. Pollock made Grace an apple pie on her visit to his studio before introducing her to “Bill” – Willem De Kooning, whose work hung side-by-side with Hartigan’s large canvases during the heights of their movement.

A small, supportive community of broke artists – Dylan Thomas, Frank O’Hara, Hans Hoffman, Franz Kline, these artists existed in a time before the serious money of the 1980s, a time when you were expected to put art first, even above family, and to just earn the minimum amount of money necessary to gain the maximum time to devote to your art.

While many of Hartigan’s works now live in Baltimore, and a couple more grace the Whitney’s collection, Hartigan’s first major gallery sale was of the painting “Persian Jacket” (1952), the earliest piece of the artist’s to reside at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC.

Alluding to several love affairs with prominent artists, one key spat with the art critic, Clement Greenberg, and real love with scientist Winston Price, the documentary doesn’t dwell on the artist’s past but on her work output. "Shattering Boundaries" follows her work’s thematic shift into the popular culture inthe 1960’s, and through a period of increased figurative work completed through her troubles with alcohol in the 1970’s, her hospitalization in the 1980’s, and her career as a painting teacher in Maryland until her death. 

The flick is a thoroughly entertaining half hour that harangues the audience to beg for more. There is no doubt in this viewer’s mind, that although Hartigan was one of the boys, she very much identified with her feminist side, and remains an important legacy to working women artists especially. 

Grace Hartigan Shattering Boundaries is available on DVD here through MIcroCinema International.