Suzy Frelinghuysen

Suzy Frelinghuysen (1911-1988) was one of the most distinctive American abstract painters of her generation and a rare figure who also pursued a serious professional career in opera. Born in Newark, New Jersey, into the distinguished Frelinghuysen family of politicians and public figures, she was raised in cultivated circumstances that encouraged her lifelong engagement with both the visual arts and music. She trained briefly at the Elizabeth Duncan School of Dance but developed as a painter largely on her own, teaching herself the principles of geometric abstraction through direct study of the European modernists.

In 1935 Frelinghuysen married the painter George L.K. Morris, one of the founding members of the American Abstract Artists group, and the two would remain artistic partners and lifelong collaborators. Together they formed part of the small but influential circle sometimes called the "Park Avenue Cubists," which also included A.E. Gallatin and Charles G. Shaw, a group of independently wealthy American painters devoted to Cubism and geometric abstraction at a moment when American art was still overwhelmingly figurative. Frelinghuysen produced tightly composed abstract paintings characterized by planes of flat color, incisive drawn lines, and frequently the incorporation of collaged elements drawn from newspapers, sheet music, and printed materials.

Alongside her painting practice, Frelinghuysen enjoyed a distinguished parallel career as a coloratura soprano, singing with the New York City Opera and other major American companies. She and Morris built a remarkable modernist home and studio in Lenox, Massachusetts, that today operates as the Frelinghuysen Morris House and Studio, a museum devoted to their lives and work. Her paintings are held in the Whitney, the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim, and other important American collections.