Audrey Flack, a pioneering Photorealist artist known for her meticulous depictions of everyday objects, passed away on June 28 in Southampton, New York, at 93. Her death was announced by art dealer Louis K. Meisel.
Flack’s art blurred boundaries between high and low culture, painting and photography, and kitsch and avant-garde. Despite criticism, her distinctive style garnered a dedicated following. As Karen Chernick noted in a 2024 ARTnews profile, Flack’s work was figurative when abstraction reigned, and she used airbrushes when they were unfashionable.
Her notable "Vanitas" series, created between 1976 and 1978, combined traditional still life themes with modern elements like Marilyn Monroe and lipsticks, exploring themes of mortality. Initially criticized, these works are now celebrated, with one piece housed in the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s feminist gallery.
Born in New York in 1931, Flack was influenced by Old Master paintings and studied at Cooper Union and Yale. After a hiatus in the 1980s, she transitioned to sculpture, creating monumental goddess figures.
Flack’s memoir, "With Darkness Came Stars," was released this year, and the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill, New York, will honor her with a survey of her work in October.
Selena Mattei