An installation view of the exhibition, Suzan Frecon: recent paintings, oil and water, at David Zwirner in London, dated 2022.

 (b. 1941) is known for abstract oil paintings and works on paper that—as she describes her practice—“speak for themselves.” Made over long stretches of time, her work invites the viewer’s sustained attention: these, she says, “are not pictures that you look at. They are paintings that you experience.”

In Frecon’s paintings, composition serves as her foundational structure, holding color, material, and light; her compositions are characterized by asymmetrically balanced forms in precise spatial and proportional relationships. However, she has noted, “I use measurements for visual reasons, to achieve an unbalanced equilibrium.” The artist mixes pigments and oils to differing effects, and the visual experience of her work is heightened by her almost tactile use of color and contrasting matte and shiny surfaces. Colors and surfaces vary in terms of density and reflectivity, and areas in the compositions frequently shift between dark and light. Figure can become ground and ground can become figure in, as the artist defines it, a back-and-forth of full and empty space.

Frecon was born in Mexico, Pennsylvania. Following a degree in fine arts from Pennsylvania State University in 1963, she spent three years at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris and studied paintings in museums throughout Europe.

The artist has exhibited widely in the United States and internationally. In 2008, her work was the subject of a major solo exhibition, 

form, color, illumination: Suzan Frecon painting

, at The Menil Collection in Houston, Texas, which traveled to the Kunstmuseum Bern in Switzerland. She has participated in a number of group exhibitions such as the 2000 and 2010 Whitney Biennials.

Frecon was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2022. In 2016, Frecon received the Artist Award from the Artists’ Legacy Foundation in Oakland, California.

The artist’s work has been represented by David Zwirner since 2008. Previous solo shows with the gallery include 

 (Hong Kong, 2018), which marked her first solo exhibition in Asia. In 2020, the solo exhibition 

 was on view at the gallery's New York location. At David Zwirner, London, 

Public institutions that hold works by the artist include the Art Institute of Chicago; Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, California; Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland; The Menil Collection, Houston, Texas; The Morgan Library & Museum, New York; The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. She lives and works in New York.

 Suzan Frecon, “text and related work,” in 

. Exh. cat. (New York: David Zwirner Books, 2015), p. 63.

A scholar and critical theorist, Richard Shiff is the Effie Marie Cain Regents Chair in Art at The University of Texas at Austin. His interests range broadly across the field of modern and contemporary art. His publications include 

Ellsworth Kelly: New York Drawings 1954–1962

Joel Shapiro: Sculpture and Works on Paper 1969–2019

Sensuous Thoughts: Essays on the Work of Donald Judd

 (2020). He is currently completing a comprehensive study of the art of Jack Whitten.

Richard Shiff

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

Suzan Frecon: painting | Books

David Zwirner is an art gallery with locations in New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris and Hong Kong. We present physical and online exhibitions, podcasts, books, and more.