Lucia Wilcox

B. Plovdiv, Bulgaria, 1899
D. New York, NY, 1974

Lucia Wilcox was a French-Lebanese painter who grew up in Beirut, Lebanon before becoming a singular figure amongst the Surrealists in Paris and the Abstract Expressionists in New York, though her contribution to these movements has gone largely unrecognized. During her time in Paris, Wilcox formed a group of friends that included Fernand Leger, Raoul Dufy and Jacques Lipchitz. In 1938 she moved to Amagansett, Long Island, where her home was a gathering place for artist friends – including Jackson Pollock, André Breton, Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamp, Fernand Léger, and Robert Motherwell, among others – where they shared her Lebanese and French cuisine, and played chess and beach games. There she was instrumental in organizing East Hampton's first contemporary art exhibit at Guild Hall in 1949. Several years before her death Wilcox lost her sight. Instead of quitting painting, she developed a new way of working with the help of her husband, Roger Wilcox. Roger arranged felt-tip pens in a sequence that Wilcox memorized and used to help her recognize her materials. She said, "I claim I see better than anybody. I have eliminated all the details. My mind is free of static. I don't have any distractions." Her work changed in this period to large canvases in color depicting outer space inspired images. Her friend, Willem de Kooning was so intrigued by Wilcox painting a picture she could not see that he did a series of canvases with his eyes closed. He later said that, "closing the eyes was very helpful to me." Wilcox exhibited her work at both Sidney Janis Gallery and Leo Castelli Gallery.