Year of the Still Life: On Jane Freilicher, Giorgio Morandi, and Jennifer Packer

At a time when many are more familiar than ever with their domestic surroundings, three painters with ongoing exhibitions at Kasmin and David Zwirner in New York, and the Serpentine here in London, engender lessons in close looking.

Drawing formal comparisons between works of still life spanning over 100 years, this panel will explore how Jane Freilicher, Giorgio Morandi, and Jennifer Packer pursued a most traditional genre in uniquely radical ways.

Joining moderator Dr Matthew Holman will be Melissa Blanchflower, Curator at the Serpentine, who has recently organized Jennifer Packer’s exhibition The Eye Is Not Satisfied With Seeing; Eric Brown, Advisor to the Estate of Jane Freilicher, the New York School painter whose light-swept works are currently on view at Kasmin in Parts of a World; and David Leiber, a Partner at David Zwirner where the critically acclaimed exhibition Albers & Morandi: Never Finished runs through April 3.

Melissa Blanchflower is Curator of Exhibitions and Public Art at the Serpentine in London. She has curated exhibitions and edited publications on Marc Camille Chaimowicz, Rose Wylie, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Emma Kunz, Faith Ringgold and Jennifer Packer among others. Prior to joining the Serpentine, Melissa was an Assistant Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at Tate Britain.

Eric Brown is an art dealer and curator. Co-owner of Tibor de Nagy Gallery from 1993 to 2017, he represented Jane Freilicher, and worked closely with the artist for over two decades. He established Eric Brown Art Group in 2017, advising private collectors and artists. He is Advisor to the Estate of Jane Freilicher, which has been represented by Kasmin since 2017.

Matthew Holman is a writer and critic. He completed a PhD at University College London in 2020 and has been a visiting fellow at Yale University, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the John F. Kennedy Institute in Berlin. His art writing has been published by Frieze, The Art Newspaper, The White Review and Apollo. Matthew is currently Research Associate at The Perimeter.

David Leiber, a Partner at David Zwirner in New York, joined the gallery in 2014 and brings over 35 years of experience in the art world. Leiber works closely with the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation and with the Joan Mitchell Foundation, as well as with the Estate of Diane Arbus and the Paul Klee Family. Currently on view in Chelsea is his exhibition Albers and Morandi: Never Finished. He has also organized numerous acclaimed exhibitions for the gallery, including Endless Enigma: Eight Centuries of Fantastic Art (with Nicholas Hall) in 2018; Joan Mitchell: I carry my landscapes around with me in 2019, an exhibition of the artist’s large-scale, multi-part paintings; and the gallery’s inaugural exhibition of works by Paul Klee titled Paul Klee: 1939.