Grace Hartigan's 'Summer Street' Blends Abstraction and Figuration

Grace Hartigan (1922–2008), a postwar American painter, created 'Summer Street' in 1956, now at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. The work merges Abstract Expressionist influences—color field painting from Mark Rothko and Helen Frankenthaler, action painting from Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning—with recognizable forms like a seated woman in blue sunglasses and a bicycle. Hartigan, encouraged by poet Frank O'Hara, drew from daily life, mixing abstraction with imagery from city streets, magazines, and myth. Unlike contemporaries Joan Mitchell or Lee Krasner, she refused to choose between abstraction and representation. The painting uses flat space without perspective, building form through color and rhythm, inspired by Henri Matisse's use of color. Hartigan varied brushstrokes from thick impasto to thin washes, creating a sense of light, motion, and urban energy. By 1956, she was gaining recognition but still pushing boundaries, and 'Summer Street' remains a timeless example of painting that tells a story through color, motion, and intuition.