Grace Hartigan, one of the New York painters associated with poets John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch, and Frank O’Hara in the 1950s during the early days of their careers, died last Saturday, November 15, at the age of 86. Hartigan’s closest connection to the New York School of poets materialized in her personal relationship with Frank O’Hara throughout the ‘50s and the collaborative poem-posters they created, particularly a series of one dozen Hartigan artworks concerning text by O’Hara and with the words incorporated into the paintings. The series was titled Oranges.
Hartigan moved to Baltimore in 1960, upon which her link to O’Hara and the New York poets practically ended. Nevertheless, one year after Frank O’Hara’s 1966 death due to injuries resulting from a freak accident when he was run down by a motor vehicle on Fire Island, a number of artists paid tribute to him by contributing illustrations to accompany some of O’Hara’s poems in a book titled In Memory of My Feelings, edited by Bill Berkson and published by the Museum of Modern Art. For her part, O’Hara’s longtime friend and past collaborator, Grace Hartigan, produced The Day Lady Died, the above artwork inspired by O’Hara’s poem of the same title, which itself had been written in response to the poet’s learning about Billie Holiday’s death.
An informative obituary of Grace Hartigan appears in the Baltimore Sun. Readers are invited to visit previous “One Poet’s Notes” posts relating to Frank O’Hara: “Larry Rivers and Frank O’Hara,” “Frank O’Hara and Jackson Pollock,” and “Frank O’Hara: 'Having a Coke with You.'”
Hartigan moved to Baltimore in 1960, upon which her link to O’Hara and the New York poets practically ended. Nevertheless, one year after Frank O’Hara’s 1966 death due to injuries resulting from a freak accident when he was run down by a motor vehicle on Fire Island, a number of artists paid tribute to him by contributing illustrations to accompany some of O’Hara’s poems in a book titled In Memory of My Feelings, edited by Bill Berkson and published by the Museum of Modern Art. For her part, O’Hara’s longtime friend and past collaborator, Grace Hartigan, produced The Day Lady Died, the above artwork inspired by O’Hara’s poem of the same title, which itself had been written in response to the poet’s learning about Billie Holiday’s death.
THE DAY LADY DIED
It is 12:20 in New York a Friday
three days after Bastille day, yes
it is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine
because I will get off the 4:19 in Easthampton
at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner
and I don’t know the people who will feed me
I walk up the muggy street beginning to sun
and have a hamburger and a malted and buy
an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets
in Ghana are doing these days
I go on to the bank
and Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard)
doesn’t even look up my balance for once in her life
and in the GOLDEN GRIFFIN I get a little Verlaine
for Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do
think of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore or
Brendan Behan’s new play or Le Balcon or Les Nègres
of Genet, but I don’t, I stick with Verlaine
after practically going to sleep with quandariness
and for Mike I just stroll into the PARK LANE
Liquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega and
then I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue
and the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatre and
casually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton
of Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her face on it
and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of
leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT
while she whispered a song along the keyboard
to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing
—Frank O’Hara
An informative obituary of Grace Hartigan appears in the Baltimore Sun. Readers are invited to visit previous “One Poet’s Notes” posts relating to Frank O’Hara: “Larry Rivers and Frank O’Hara,” “Frank O’Hara and Jackson Pollock,” and “Frank O’Hara: 'Having a Coke with You.'”
1 comment:
wow! abstract drawing! i loved it!
Post a Comment