Perle Fine

Perle Fine was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1905. Fine’s artistic training began in her teens when she studied illustration and graphic design; she also studied with Kimon Nicolaides, Hans Hofmann, Robert Blackburn, and Pruett Carter. Fine’s first individual show was at the Willard Gallery in 1945 and in 1950 she was sponsored by Willem de Kooning and admitted as one of the first women members of the 8th Street Artists’ Club. Fine was chosen by her fellow artists to show in the Ninth Street Show held from May 21 to June 10, 1951. Fine also participated from 1951 to 1957 in the invitational New York Painting and Sculpture Annuals, including the Ninth Street Show. In the 1950s Fine moved to the Springs section of East Hampton on the eastern end of Long Island where she built her studio. It was a summer colony turned permanent residence for many artists of the New York School and she lived near friends and colleagues Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollack, becoming a member of a sparse but ultimately enduring artistic community. Fine taught at Hofstra University from the early 1960s until 1974. Though Fine’s brushwork became looser and heavier with time, Fine was always recognized for her ability to create visual rhythms using geometric forms, colors, and lines. She is represented in the collections of the Metropolitan, MoMA, Smithsonian, the Whitney and Guggenheim, and the National Gallery of Art.