SUZY FRELINGHUYSEN (1911-1988)
Available Work | Biography
Biography • Suzy Frelinghuysen (1911-1988)
Suzy Frelinghuysen was born in Newark, New Jersey to a notable family of politicians. Suzy was raised at her family’s estate Oakhurst in Elberon, New Jersey and in Princeton, New Jersey. Although she painted as a child, Suzy focused on opera and moved to New York to pursue a career on the stage. In 1935 Suzy married artist George L.K. Morris. Suzy’s marriage to Morris led her to take up painting and while she was not a founding member of the American Abstract Artists group, she joined in April 1937 in time for the group’s first solo exhibition at the Squibb Building in New York. Her work was also exhibited at the Paul Reinhardt Galleries alongside Morris, Gallatin, and Shaw at the same time as the AAA’s second exhibition. The Reinhardt exhibition was titled Paintings and Objects and in 1940 traveled to the San Francisco Museum of Art, retitled American Abstract Art. Frelinghuysen was also included in Eight by Eight: American Abstract Painting Since 1940 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1944 and exhibited in the Whitney Museum of American Art’s annuals in 1944, 1945, and 1946. Frelinghuysen was working towards a solo show at the Museum of Living Art when NYU failed to renew A. E. Gallatin’s lease for the space. As a result, Gallatin gave his collection to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which included Frelinghuysen’s Untitled (Toreador Drinking), 1942.
Suzy Frelinghuysen was part of a group of artists recently termed The Park Avenue Cubists. Along with her husband George L. K. Morris, the other members were A.E. Gallatin and Charles Green Shaw. These four artists were able to transport modern ideas from Paris to New York during the Depression because they could afford to travel. A.E. Gallatin exhibited his collection as The Gallery of Living Art at New York University from 1927 into the mid-1940s. The Gallery of Living Art was the only public collection exhibiting European modernism prior to the opening of the Museum of Modern Art in late 1929 and with its free admission, it was responsible for introducing many great American artists to the work of Picasso, Juan Gris, and Juan Miró. The Park Avenue Cubists were the subject of an exhibition at the Grey Art Gallery at NYU in 2003, which was accompanied by a catalogue which remains the best source on the group.
Throughout Frelinghuysen’s work there remains a connection to identifiable objects in her still lifes and a touch of whimsy. Of the Park Avenue Cubists, Frelinghuysen had the greatest interest in collage and a commitment to the play of textures used in synthetic Cubism.
Suzy Frelinghuysen continued to paint while also pursuing her career in opera. She performed with the New York City Opera including the title role of Tosca in the company’s 1948 season. In 1951 Suzy retired from the stage and devoted herself to painting exclusively the rest of her life.
Suzy Frelinghuysen’s work can be found in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; and the Harn Museum of Art, Gainesville, FL.