Fran Bull

Who is Fran Bull?

Fran Bull is an American artist living and working in the United States and Barcelona, Spain.

Bull became known originally for her Photorealism paintings made in the mid 1970s and 80s. Among her most famous Photorealist works are Flamingo Stereopticon, Lincoln Center Reclining Figure and Winged Narcissus. This earlier work was influenced by her mentor and ex-husband, Malcolm Morley and by the Pop spirit of Photorealism. It was shown and sold through the Louis K. Meisel Gallery in New York City and has been collected widely in Kansas City through the Morgan Gallery, owned before her death by curator and gallerist Myra Morgan. During this time, Bull was one of the most noted photo-realists along with Morley.

In the late 1980s, Bull’s art began to develop towards abstraction, or neo-abstract expressionism. Instead of seeking to depict the familiar, touchable surfaces of this world, Bull felt compelled to investigate and capture the teeming, yet unseen forces giving rise to those surfaces. In her break-through series of paintings The Magdalene Cycle for example, the large canvases seem to lay bare the hidden energies and biomorphic entities that animate and enliven the physical realm.