Jenni Quilter

Jenni Quilter teaches at New York University. Her most recent book is New York School Painters and Poets.

The Real Thing

Jenni Quilter, 21 April 2016

On a spring day in New York City in 1960, Grace Hartigan, then 38 years old, took the train uptown to visit Winston Price, a young scientist from Baltimore, and a new collector of her work. To anyone who saw her on the subway, she wouldn’t have looked like a painter; ‘when I go out,’ she said, ‘I’m all woman.’ Her work had just begun to sell, and to celebrate she had bought furs, jewellery and handbags. The woman who stepped onto Fifth Avenue looked like she belonged there.

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