Susan Vecsey was born in Somerville, New Jersey and raised in a dual culture by parents who emigrated from Hungary to the US in 1969. Vecsey earned her Bachelor of Arts from Barnard College, Columbia University, New York, and a Master of Fine Arts from the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture, studying under Graham Nickson. In 2012, Vecsey was a visiting artist at the American Academy in Rome. In 2017, Susan Vecsey had a solo museum exhibition at the Greenville County Museum in South Carolina, featuring numerous large-scale paintings and a catalog with an essay by art historian Phyllis Tuchman. In reference to Vecsey’s 2014 show at Berry Campbell Gallery, New York, Franklin Einspruch declared in Artcritical, “this is virtuoso painting.” Vecsey has been exhibited alongside many notable artists including Josef Albers, Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Helen Frankenthaler, James Brooks, Elaine de Kooning, Alfonso Ossorio, Charlotte Park, Perle Fine, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Jane Freilicher, Frank Bowling, Mary Heilmann, David Salle, Sean Scully and Jeffrey Gibson. Vecsey was represented exclusively by Ira Spanierman at Spanierman Modern, NY, from 2009-2014. At its inception in 2014, Berry Campbell announced the representation of the artist. Vecsey is widely held in both public and private collections and is represented by Berry Campbell Gallery in New York, Maya Frodeman Gallery in Jackson Hole, WY, and Quogue Gallery in Quogue, NY.
Susan Vecsey creates abstractions from perception, with pouring techniques from the Color Field tradition. The landscape or the figure is a starting point, a vehicle to explore form and color. Compositions are simplified to their essence to create a universal image. The artist begins with charcoal drawings, and then works on extensive color studies to find three to four colors that will lock together visually. Vecsey works like a watercolorist but with thinned oil paint, carefully pouring in a wet in wet process. No brushes are used in the application, to avoid brush marks, and to better show the beauty of materials. “With poured paint, timing is everything, and it is important to be decisive with it, and also ready to accept or reject the unexpected.”
Vecsey lives and works in New York City and East Hampton, New York.
MUSEUM, CORPORATE AND PRIVATE COLLECTIONS
Guild Hall Museum, Permanent Collection. East Hampton, NY.
Greenville County Museum of Art (GCMA). Greenville, SC.
Grand Hyatt, Presidential Suite. New York, NY.
Francis J. Greenburger Collection, New York, NY.
Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn, NY.
Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, NY
UT Southwestern University Hospital, Dallas. TX.
Numerous Private Collections.
EDUCATION
MFA in Painting, New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting & Sculpture. Atelier: Graham Nickson. Additional study with Graham Nickson in ten 2-week Drawing Marathons.
MIA Finance, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University.
BA, Barnard College, Columbia University.
Continued study at MoMA, The New School, and International Center of Photography.
HONORS
American Academy in Rome, Visiting Artist.
Rome, Italy. June 25 - July 25, 2012
Studio Visit in East Hampton, Day of Art, American Federation of the Arts (AFA). East Hampton, NY. July 23, 2015
Collector Marika Herskovic Annual Artist Seminar, invitation to present recent work.
Franklin Lakes, NJ. May 2012.
Board Member, Stephen and Palmina Pace Foundation. New York, NY. June 2015 - 2019.
Bubu Residency. Budapest, Hungary,
November 2023
Maison de Simon Residency. Normandy, France, 2024
TEACHING
Invited by Graham Nickson to teach figure drawing at the New York Studio School, New York, NY. 2015-2016.
