24 Facts About Grace Hartigan

Grace Hartigan was an American abstract expressionist painter and a significant member of the vibrant New York School of the 1950s and 1960s.

Grace Hartigan's paintings are held by numerous major institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Grace Hartigan worked as a draftsman in an airplane factory to support herself and her son.

In 1945, Grace Hartigan moved to New York City, and became a member of the downtown artistic community.

Grace Hartigan's friends included Jackson Pollock, Larry Rivers, Helen Frankenthaler, Willem de Kooning and Elaine de Kooning, Frank O'Hara and Knox Martin.

Grace Hartigan gained her reputation as part of the New York School of artists and painters that emerged in New York City during the 1940s and 1950s.

Grace Hartigan was selected by Clement Greenberg and Meyer Schapiro for the New Talent exhibition at Koontz Gallery in New York in 1950.

Grace Hartigan was often thought of as a "second generation Abstract Expressionist", being heavily influenced by her colleagues of the time.

Grace Hartigan started to use Grace as her first name in 1953.

Grace Hartigan became the first of the second generation abstract expressionists to have a piece in the museum.

In 1956, Grace Hartigan's paintings were included in the 12 Americans at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, as well as in The New American Painting, which traveled throughout Europe from 1958 to 1959.

Grace Hartigan received significant press coverage as she was one of few women at this time to receive this level of exposure.

Also in 1962, Grace Hartigan painted Monroe, marking another shift in her work toward more anxiety-laden imagery.

In 1965, Grace Hartigan was named director of the Hoffberger School of Painting, a graduate painting program at Maryland Institute College of Art, where she began teaching part-time in 1964 and continued until her death.

Grace Hartigan had been influenced by the Cubists since her early education, and the paintings of the '70s heavily reflected that interest.

Harold Rosenberg, an art critic with whom Grace Hartigan had corresponded with since her split with Greenberg in the 1950s, continued to be a part of Grace Hartigan's life in the 1970s.

Grace Hartigan's image is included in the iconic 1972 poster Some Living American Women Artists by Mary Beth Edelson.

Grace Hartigan was struggling with alcoholism, and each day, trying to abstain, put much vigor into her arts practice.

In 1993, Grace Hartigan's work was included in the "Hand-Painted Pop" exhibition at the Whitney Museum.

Grace Hartigan married Robert Jachens in 1941 and had one son, born 1942.

Grace Hartigan married Long Island gallery owner Robert Keene in 1958; they were divorced in 1960.

In 1959, Grace Hartigan met Dr Winston Price, a research scientist at Johns Hopkins University, whom she married in 1960.

Philip Guston was the artist Grace Hartigan was closest to in the 1970s.

Grace Hartigan died in November 2008, aged 86, of liver failure.