Julia Felsenthal writes about painter Jane Freilicher. A show of Jane Freilicher’s work, ’50s New York, is on view at Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York, through June 9, 2018.

Felsenthal notes that Freilicher was “committed … to rooting her practice in the everyday … Domestic spaces were her creative fodder; domestication was not (‘she had no love for Tupperware,’ [Elizabeth] Hazan clarifies). Per [Eric] Brown, she was adept at a balancing act: maintaining her foothold at the very center of the art world, and simultaneously keeping a ‘healthy distance from it.’ Freilicher was self-deprecating. (‘I paint the way I do because I have no imagination,’ she kidded, a characteristic deflection), unconcerned with popularity (how else would one become a landscape painter in an era of muscular Abstract Expressionism?), and somewhat allergic to fame-seeking (‘to strain after innovation, to worry about being on “the cutting edge” . . . reflects a concern for a place in history or one’s career rather than the authenticity of one’s painting’).”