Natalie Frank Unbound

Natalie Frank: Unbound, the first museum survey exhibition to explore the New York-based artist’s comprehensive feminist drawing practice, will showcase her transformation of some of the best-known and most controversial literary narratives into stirring visual media. The exhibition will present work—some shown for the first time—from Frank’s four major drawing series and publications: The Brothers Grimm (2011–14), The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (2015), Story of O (2017–18), and Madame d’Aulnoy (2019–20). Additionally, the exhibition will feature documentary footage from Frank’s commissioned ballet, Grimm Tales.

Although narrative figuration long has characterized Frank’s practice, her collaboration starting in 2011 with pre-eminent fairy tale scholar Jack Zipes represented her first direct artistic engagement with literary fiction. Frank drew inspiration from some of the most widely beloved and boundary-testing fairy tales—most of which originated as women’s oral tales. Grimm’s fairy tales, which include Snow White and Rapunzel, have been translated into more than 160 languages. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is best known as the inspiration for Disney’s Fantasia, while Madame d’Aulnoy is credited with originating the term “fairy tale” and with publishing an early version of Cinderella. Story of O, a dark contemporary fairy tale, sparked protests for its groundbreaking sex-positive feminist depictions.

A virtuosic painter, Frank chose to work exclusively in gouache and chalk pastel for each of these series. Drawing allows Frank freedom in mark-making: layering dry and wet media, she aggregates and conceals images with a speed unattainable in oil painting. Her furious line work blends realism with abstraction, testing the traditional boundaries of figuration. The artist also challenges the boundaries of long-accepted conceptions of the fairy tale genre. Prioritizing the presence of female protagonists in these compositions, Frank returns women—and their bodies and transgressive desires—to their rightful position at the center of the narrative. While the twentieth-century adaptations of the Grimm’s and Sorcerer’s tales sanitized the dark and taboo nature of the original stories, Frank’s gouaches recast them through a feminist lens, reexamining the role of women and celebrating the fortitude of their rebellious thinking.

Her enchantment with both oral and written tales deepened, with a deliberate eye toward the celebration of female sexuality, agency, and authorship. Story of O, which many believed never could have been written by a woman, divided readers and feminists as to definitions of liberation and oppression. Frank, however, asserts the book is a narrative of feminist freedom and reimagines the proto-feminist erotic novel in lush tones and fleshy forms that applaud female desire. Embracing the historical context and psychological complexity of these stories, Frank, through her provocative compositions, deftly navigates the relationship between yearning and disgust, objectification and defiance, reinvigorating women’s stories with a feminist spirit. 3

What began as drawings in these series takes on additional life in environments that Frank creates. In bookmaking, Frank uses marginalia, supplementary texts, and personal essays to extend her vision beyond the page. For her Story of O works, she designed wallpaper on top of which her drawings are shown. Her Grimm’s book sprang to life on stage, in her collaboration with Ballet Austin, and engaged a new type of audience. These continuations of her drawing practice extend her practice into new media, with enhanced scope.

Although presented separately in museum and gallery exhibitions and on stage, these bodies of drawing never before have been brought together for audiences to consider as a comprehensive artistic practice. Natalie Frank: Unbound will be on view at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art from June 5 through September 5, 2021 and will be available to travel to additional venues thereafter.

Learn more at Madison Museum of Contemporary Art.