Mary Frank is a fantasist in stoneware. Some of her pieces are small, stages where figures “fresh” enough to seem made of wax or bread glide, gallop or pivot. Physically, Frank’s odd, diminutive dramas seem brusque and naïve, particularly compared with Joseph Cornell, whom they suggest in their sense of miniature, intimate theatre. But where Cornell’s fantasies tend toward the immaculate and the fixed, Frank’s tend more toward the rush and swirl of fantasy in motion, fantasy changing even as we watch.
—Jean-Louis Bourgeois
Frank Stella, Port Tampa City, red lead on canvas, ca. 96" sq. 1964. (Coll. J. Frederick Byers.) (Color courtesy Lawrence Rubin Gallery.)
April 1970
VOL. 8, NO. 8
