Grace Hartigan: At the Avant Garde

In 1959, Life magazine hailed Grace Hartigan as “the most celebrated of the young American women painters.” These were heady times in the art world where New York was becoming the epicenter of the avant garde and Grace’s circle of friends in the downtown artistic community included Jackson Pollock, Willem and Elaine de Kooning, Larry Rivers and others who introduced Abstract Expressionism and new, modern approaches to painting to the world. That year Grace’s paintings were traveling throughout Europe in the prestigious “New American Painting” exhibition, and she was at the top of her game. After Jackson and Elaine Pollock’s move to the East End of Long Island, many of their artist friends had followed, and Grace, too, became a summer presence in Southampton in the late 1950s. She showed her work in Bob Keene’s Main Street gallery, where she was in good company along with Willem de Kooning, Larry Rivers, Mary Abbott and others. She and Keene were married in 1959 and the couple made Ludlow Grange in Bridgehampton their home, but the marriage ended a year later.

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