On Sunday, October 2, from 11 AM to 4 PM, the studio of Ellen Frank will open to visitors, featuring little-known, early work by this artist most recognized for the monumental Cities of Peace artworks created out of her foundation, the Ellen Frank Illumination Arts Foundation.
An artist, scholar, and writer, Dr. Ellen Frank was primarily acknowledged during the past two decades as the founder in 2004 of the Ellen Frank Illumination Arts Foundation, a non-profit global organization dedicated to the transformative power of art to build a culture of understanding and peace. Cities of Peach Illuminated is its primary initiative. As artistic director, Frank trained artist-interns from more than 52 countries, and united scholars and experts to work on its joint creations.
Ellen Frank died in 2021, only ten weeks after being diagnosed with cancer. She is survived by her husband, the composer Stephen Dickman, who recently enlisted Esperanza Leon to curate and help organize the open studio occasion, which affords art collectors and appreciators of Frank’s work the opportunity to view a selection of artworks she created earlier in her career.
On display are paintings from the 1980s and ‘90s, some of which were featured in exhibitions in California and New York, including Vered Gallery in East Hampton. Studies and small works from the 2000s are also displayed, some of which are illuminated paintings and manuscripts that closely connect to her work with the foundation and the teaching she did through the Illumination Arts Atelier she founded in 2005.
Born in 1946 in Los Angeles, California, Ellen Frank earned a B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley. She studied art history and connoisseurship at Yale University, the Courtauld and Warburg Institutes in London, and earned an interdisciplinary doctorate in English Literature and the Visual Arts from Stanford University. In 2015, she received an Honorary Doctorate for Cities of Peace from the Russian Armenian (Slavonic) University.
Dr. Frank was the recipient of many awards in painting, book design, and scholarship including a Fulbright Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts, Ford Foundation Fellowship, Pollock Krasner Award in Painting, New York State Council on the Arts, and a New York Foundation for the Arts grant. In 2018, she was named Fulbright Specialist in Peacebuilding and Reconciliation, U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) and World Learning, and she received an Award for Excellence for Cities of Peace from KFOR / NATO.
This exhibition from the Estate of Ellen Frank will open at the studio on Sunday, October 2, from 11 AM to 4 PM and continue on Sunday, October 9, 11 AM to 4 PM. Visits can be arranged by appointment on subsequent weekends through November 13 by contacting Esperanza Leon at 516-527-0709 or Stephen Dickman at 631-835-2645.
All proceeds from sales will go to the Ellen Frank Illumination Arts Foundation, efiaf.org. Selected works from the Estate of Ellen Frank can be viewed online via artworkarchive.com.