The Queen of Hearts
With Darkness Came A Star Named Audrey Flack
A monsoon blasted Manhattan last Saturday—relentless rain pelted down on the city from morning til night. There was no question of staying indoors, though. My husband and I had somewhere important to go: an unmissable exhibition opening and book signing for one of the art world’s most dynamic and enduring stars: Audrey Flack.
We battled the brutal elements on that washout of a Saturday, dodging sloshy puddles in search of a cab. A ferocious wind almost swiped the umbrella clean from my hand as I winced from the sting of wayward hair whipping across my face. Once safely in a car after our wrestle with Mother Nature, I shook the deluge onto the floor mat and turned to Danny—“Poor Audrey, what an unfortunate day to be having an opening! I hope people still show up.” As the cab inched its way through sodden streets, windshield wipers at full speed, I imagined us arriving at the tail end of a scattered gathering like two drenched lambs.
Through the door of Hollis Taggart, an esteemed gallery in Chelsea, a phalanx of saturated umbrellas crowded the entrance area. The vast exhibition space was packed from wall to white wall, on which sixteen of Flack’s utterly unique artworks dazzled above the bustle and chatter. The gallery director welcomed us into the throng with: “You got here at the perfect time—an hour ago it was elbow to elbow—you couldn’t even move!”
How foolish I was to consider anything less than a turnout of this magnitude for the ‘Queen of Hearts’ as she is known. Of course, people had flocked to see Flack’s latest body of work, regardless of the weather. The phenomenal 92-year-old, now in her eighth decade as a practicing artist, has entered what she describes as her “Post-Pop Baroque Period”.
Born in New York City in 1931, Flack was Yale-educated and studied under Josef Albers. During her student years, she mingled with art giants such as Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, and Franz Kline. She began her career as an abstract expressionist in the 1950s before evolving into Photorealism, a genre of art that depicts a photograph as realistically as possible using another medium. Flack pioneered the genre as one of the First Generation Photorealists, alongside Chuck Close, Charles Bell, and Richard Estes. In 1966, she was the first photorealist painter to have works purchased by the Museum of Modern Art, which remain part of their permanent collection.
Her spectacular new show “With Darkness Comes Stars” of paintings and sculptures—(in the 1980s she shifted mediums and taught herself sculpture)—references religious and art history blended with contemporary cinema and pop culture.
After marveling at the whimsical yet profound works, I joined the long line of fans eagerly awaiting their fifteen seconds with Flack, clutching hard copies of her long-awaited memoir, similarly titled, With Darkness Came Stars. The book, available here, came out of a deep depression forty years ago, during which she would spend her days sitting on a bench on an island in the middle of Broadway, near her apartment. She made notes as a way of self-analyzing through a time of crisis. Her remarkable story charts her rise as a female artist and the challenges she faced in a male-dominated art world, surviving an abusive first marriage and raising two daughters, one with severe autism. She was also once a teacher of anatomy at New York University and would pay her daughter’s medical bills with paintings.
Only in the darkest moments of our lives do the brightest stars appear.
This quote rings truer than ever for me, as it was during the darkest time of my own life that the brightest star appeared—a celestial gift in the form of a beautiful woman named Anita—which brings me to the story of how I came to meet Audrey, or rather, how the shock and grief of losing someone we both loved brought us together. The first time I met Audrey was under the saddest of circumstances, an entirely different type of gathering at the Plaza Jewish Community Chapel to celebrate the life of Dr. Anita Bookey, the most moving memorial service I ever attended.
Audrey and Anita had been best friends since they were seven years old. The two little girls had met at school in New York City (in the 1930s!) sitting next to each other in class, sticking together and maintaining that bond through all of life’s ups, downs, turbulent twists and turns. They talked on the phone every single day, right up until Anita’s sudden death at the end of 2022. The way Audrey got up and spoke of her best friend at the memorial had all of us mourners weeping. I was beside myself with loss, and yet I had only known Anita for four years. I could not even imagine Audrey’s heartache, though their closeness does not surprise me. Two spiritual superheroes burning with eternal love.
The enormous popularity I witnessed at Audrey’s opening is indicative of her status as one of America’s most important living artists. The multi-talented, wildly creative Flack is also an accomplished writer and musician who plays the banjo. In 2019, the gorgeous documentary Queen of Hearts: Audrey Flack was released, showing her in full artistic action. Amongst those interviewed on film was her oldest friend, our treasured Anita. I did not watch the documentary until after Anita had passed, so it was such a treat to see her face lighting up the screen, and hearing her unmistakable voice again.
I like to think of Anita now as my fairy godmother—a little Wonderwoman—right here with me whenever I am feeling sad…
The show “With Darkness Comes Stars” is on at Hollis Taggart until 20th April, so if you are in New York, I urge you to go and see it. If you miss it, you can always catch a sprinkle of her stardust at a museum such as MoMA, the Metropolitan, the Whitney, or the Guggenheim, all of which (not surprisingly) show her work.
When it comes to a star named Audrey Flack, you will leave bedazzled.
Fascinating article about an amazing artist and her show. Can’t wait to see it!