Born in Sumter, South Carolina in 1946, Frank Faulkner received his B.F.A. from the University of North Carolina in 1968, Phi Beta Kappa, and his M.F.A. from the same institution in 1972. Faulkner’s work quickly won him numerous grants and awards, including an individual artist grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1974. He was selected for the Whitney Biennial in 1975, which prompted him to settle in New York. There, he came to the attention of Dorothy Miller, Curator Emeritus of the Museum of Modern Art with a legendary eye for new talent. Since then, Faulkner has continued to garner acclaim and awards. He has been featured in dozens of one-person exhibitions (not to mention group exhibitions) in this country, as well as in Japan, Switzerland, and Germany. Faulkner’s work is owned by leading museums (the Smith College museum in Northampton, Massachusetts, for example, the National Museum of American Art and the Hirshhorn in Washington, D.C.) and by renowned collectors such as Nelson Rockefeller, Baron Leon Lambert, Phillip Hanes and Abba Eban. What a viewer first notices is the sheer elegance of the pieces, no matter what materials Faulkner uses—metal, wood and fabric as well as canvas and paper. Obvious, too, is the artist’s originality. Faulkner belongs to no school. His work is patterned but is far too intellectual to qualify as so-called “pattern art,” which mainly strives to be merely pretty. Rather, he paints in his own highly organized way, filling the surface without being excessive or boring. Faulkner sets up a system, say, of dots or dashes, then subtly changes the visual rhythms in order to add life and surprise—what he calls “the gymnastics of seeing.” He works and reworks the surfaces of his canvases, often laying down one thin layer of slightly reflective gold, silver or bronze paint upon another until the final work seems to glow with inner light. John Ashbery, a leading critic and poet, has likened Faulkner’s art to minimalist music, which achieves both simplicity and beauty from its obsessive repetitions. The critic Carter Ratcliff describes it more simply as “brilliant artifice.” Faulkner’s current work, a series of paintings on paper, continues and deepens this exploration of the relationship between wrought surface and changing light. Another striking aspect of the work is the influence of the decorative arts. Faulkner has made some paintings on wood that stand independently and fold open like screens. Other pieces resemble large tapestries, and yet others take their inspiration from Art Nouveau inlays. Faulkner is quick to admit his sources. To him, the applied arts are indistinguishable from the fine art. He knows and loves Samurai armor, Classical architectural details, chinoiserie, Persian rugs—the whole gamut of the applied arts—and they, of course, inform his creations. Indeed, he is so interested in interiors that he has, while continuing to paint, spent much of the last decade restoring old houses and advising clients how to decorate their homes. (Many of the results have been featured in periodicals such as Architectural Digest and House & Garden.) Faulkner now lives and works in Hudson, New York.
Philip Herrera, June 2006
frankfaulkner.com
FRANK FAULKNER
BORN:
1946 Sumter, South Carolina
EDUCATION:
M.F.A. University of North Carolina, 1972 B.F.A. University of North Carolina, 1968, Phi Beta Kappa
AWARDS:
North Carolina Arts Council, 1991 Collaboration Artist Award, American Institute of Architects, 1976 SECCA National Endowment Grant, 1976 National Endowment for the Arts, Individual Artists Grant, 1976 Urban Walls Project, National Endowment for the Arts Grant Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 1974
SELECTED ONE PERSON EXHIBITIONS:
Robert McClain & Co., Houston, Texas, 1999 Somerhill Gallery, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1999 Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson, New York, 1999 Robert McClain & Co., Houston, Texas, 1998 Roy Boyd Gallery, Chicago, Illinois, 1998 Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson, New York, 1998 Robert McClain & Co., Houston, Texas, 1995 & 1996 Arden Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts, 1995 Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, Louisiana, 1994 Merita Gilliam Gallery, Raleigh, North Carolina, 1992 Roy Boyd Gallery, Chicago, Illinois, 1990 & 1991 Arden Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts, 1991 Associated American Artists, New York, New York, 1990 Roy Boyd Gallery, Chicago, Illinois, 1988 Arden Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts, 1988 Davis/McClain, Houston, Texas, 1987 Associated American Artists, New York, New York, 1987 Mint Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina, 1987 Wake Forest Arts Association, Raleigh, North Carolina, 1987 Roy Boyd Gallery, Chicago, Illinois, 1986 Gibbs Museum, Charleston, South Carolina, 1986 Hodges Taylor Gallery, Charlotte, North Carolina, 1986 Davis/McClain, Houston, Texas, 1985 Roy Boyd Gallery, Los Angeles, California, 1985 Monique Knowlton Gallery, New York, New York, 1984 Davis/McClain, Houston, Texas, 1983 Roy Boyd Gallery, Los Angeles, California, 1983 Monique Knowlton Gallery, New York, New York, 1983 Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 1983 Monique Knowlton Gallery, New York, New York, 1982 Carolyn Schneebeck Gallery, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1981 Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, 1981 Davidson College, Davidson, North Carolina, 1979 Alexandra Monnett Gallery, Brussels, Belgium, 1978 Henri Gallery, Washington, D.C., 1977 East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, Tennessee, 1977
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS:
Field and Stream, Monique Knowlton Gallery, New York, 1986 Chicago International ArtFair, Chicago, Illinois, 1995 Frank Faulkner: Recent Paintings and Michael Todd: Recent Sculpture, Davis/McClain, Houston, Texas, 1992 Associated American Artists, New York, New York, 1990 David Heath Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia, 1987 “New York Painter”, LaForet Gallery, Tokyo, Japan, 1985 “New Concepts in Printmaking”, Associated American Artists, New York, New York, 1985 “Art/Furniture”, Davis/McClain Gallery, Houston, Texas, 1985 “Andrew Wyeth, A Trojan Horse Modernist”, Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, North Carolina, 1984 “The Fabric of Ornamentation”, Bruce Museum, Greenwich, Connecticut, 1983 “New Work”, Monique Knowlton Gallery, New York, New York, 1983 “Recent Work”, Roy Boyd Gallery, Chicago, Illinois, 1983 “Transpersonal Images”, International Transpersonal Association Conference, Davos, Switzerland, 1983 “The Spirit of Orientalism”, Nueberger Museum, Purchase, New York, 1982 “Arabia Felix”, Art Gallery, New York, New York, 1981 “The Art of North Carolina”, Squibb Center, Princeton, New Jersey and Duke University Museum of Art, Durham, North Carolina, 1981 “Abstract Art in the 80's”, Randolph-Macon Women's College, Lynchburg, Virginia, 1981 “Mit Sammlung Ludwig”, Neue Galerie, Aachen, Germany, 1981 “Pattern and Decoration”, Kreuzinger Galerie, Innsbruck, Austria, 1980 “Patterns”, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, 1979 “Patterns and Decoration”, Galerie Haberman, Cologne, Germany, 1979 “New York Now”, Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, Arizona, 1979 “13 Galleries”, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia, 1979 “Southeastern Painters and Sculptors”, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia, 1977 “Biennial of Contemporary American Art”, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York, 1975 “James River Annual”, Norfolk, Virginia, 1971
SELECTED PUBLIC AND CORPORATE COLLECTIONS:
National Collection of Fine Arts, Washington, D.C. Hirshorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. Albright-Knox Art Gallery, uffalo, New York Sammlung Ludwig, Neue Galerie, Aachen, Germany Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, Delaware Springfield Art Museum, Springfield, Missouri Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, North Carolina Ackland Memorial Art Center, Chapel Hill, North Carolina Pennsylvania State University Museum of Art, University Park, Pennsylvania North Carolina State University Raleigh, North Carolina Chase Manhattan Bank, New York, New York Amoco Production Company, Houston, Texas Compaq Computer Corporation, Houston, Texas Seagull Energy Corporation, Houston, Texas United Bank, Houston, Texas Contract Compression, Houston, Texas Harris Bank, Chicago, Illinois R.J. Reynolds Corporation, Winston-Salem, North Carolina Hanes Corporation, Winston-Salem, North Carolina General Electric Company, Stamford, Connecticut Owens-Corning Fiberglass Collection, Toledo, Ohio Southeastern Banking Corporation, Miami, Florida Hollywood Federal Savings and Loan Association, Hollywood, Florida Becton Dickinson & Company, Paramus, New Jersey Dulin Gallery of Art, Knoxville, Tennessee Citibank Corporation, New York, New York Denver National Bank, Denver, Colorado Aetna Life, Hartford, Connecticut Sheik Achmed Jafail, Jedda, Saudi Arabia Olympia And York Corporation, Dallas, Texas New York City Transit Authority, Borough Hall Station, Brooklyn, New York A.T.&T., Atlanta, Georgia Prudential Insurance Company of America, Newark, New Jersey Tupperware Corporation, Jacksonville, Florida Equitable Life Assurance Corporation of America, New York, New York Orlando International Airport, Orlando, Florida Marriott Marquis Hotel, San Francisco, California IBM, San Francisco, California The Portman Hotel, San Francisco, California Barnett Bank, Jacksonville, Florida Wachovia Bank, Charlotte, North Carolina Nations Bank World Headquarters, Charlotte, North Carolina
PRIVATE COLLECTIONS:
Nelson Rockefeller Shah of Iran David Rockefeller Dorothy Miller Arthur Goldberg Abba Eban Baron Leon Lambert George Hanes Phillip Hanes Joseph Hirshorn H.R.H. Princess Moudi Bent Khalid
