Artist Jane Wilson, whose sixty-year career established her as one of the leading landscape painters of the postwar era, died earlier this month in New York, at the age of 90. Parsons AMT Faculty Michael Kirk recalls Wilson and their shared experience of Parsons back in the 1970’s.
Jane Wilson, Southampton, New York, August 1996, “The Whitney Project.” Photograph by John Jonas Gruen.
“I was just 25 when I started at Parsons in the fall of 1973. I was hired to oversee the print shop as well as begin to build it. Jane was also a new hire for the newly re-created Fine Arts department, which had been dormant for quite some time. Parsons had just moved from Midtown in 1971 to 2 West 13th Street, and the Fine Arts department was located in the penthouse above the 6th floor where our present Dean has his office. In total, Parsons had 400 students and maybe 20 or so Fine Arts students. Jane Wilson joined the likes of Eilaine DeKooning and Larry Rivers to teach painting, along with a group of younger painters such as Stuart Shedlesky and Kes Zapikis. A year later, with Jane’s help, Fine Arts was moved to the top floor of 24 E 13th. I am positive Jane’s advice factored into its expansion and, ultimately, the growth of Fine Arts at Parsons.”
Jane Wilson in front her painting, The Open Scene, 1960. Collection of The Museum of Modern Art. Photograph by John Jonas Gruen, May 1960.
Jane Wilson
1924-2015
DC Moore Gallery mourns the loss of Jane Wilson
The New York Times: Jane Wilson, Artist of the Ethereal, Dies at 90
The Paris Review: In Memoriam
