Frank Trefny (born 1948)

 


Spring Bouquet and Chinese Patterns, 1991
oil on canvas, 40 x 50" image size (48 x 58" framed in gold)
$7500

Frank Trefny was born in 1948 in Greenwich, Connecticut and has lived in Delaware since 1983. He received his B.F.A. from Syracuse University in 1970 and his M.F.A. in 1974 from the Hoffberger School of Painting at the Maryland Institute, College of Art studying under esteemed local artists Grace Hartigan and Raoul Middleman. Trefny has participated in numerous museum and gallery exhibitions over the past fifty years across the United States, primarily in the Mid-Atlantic region.

His work has been featured in exhibitions at the Delaware Art Museum, Noyes Museum, New Jersey, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, and several additional museum venues. His work is represented in numerous major corporate and private collections. Trefny was the cover artist and the subject of a feature article in American Artist magazine in December 1987 as well as October 2009. He was selected as the cover artist for Reader's Digest in April 1995. Steven Scott Gallery has included the artist in over one hundred group exhibitions at the gallery since 1988. We have exclusively represented the artist in the region since our opening in 1988 and exhibited his tenth solo show of new paintings with the gallery in 2016.

 

Frank Trefny: A Painter's Painter, 2011



Copper Top Table with Basin, Bottle, and Screen, 2023
oil on panel
24 x 32"
$3200



Lands and Peoples VII, 2023
oil on panel, 24 x 24"
$2800
The title of this painting refers to the title of the book on the table which is from a world anthropological encyclopedia from the 1930's. The volumes have stunning high relief images on the covers including an island and palm tree on this example.


Blue Tablecloth, 2023
oil on panel, 24 x 32"
$3200



Shearwater Still Life, 2023
oil on panel, 32 x 24"
$3200



Kashan Bouquet, 2023
oil on panel, 32 x 24"
$3200



Marble Table with Conch and Pears, 2022
oil on panel, 32 x 24"
$3200



Marble Table with Roses and an Orange, 2022
oil on panel, 32 x 24"
$3200



Marble Table with Tulips and Apples, 2022
oil on panel, 32 x 24"
$3200



Still Life with Shodai Vase Bouquet, 2018
oil on panel, 32 x 24"
$3200



White Onions and Ginger Jar, 2019
oil on panel, 24 x 32"
$3200



Marble Table with Peonies and Lemon, 2021
oil on panel, 32 x 24"
$3200


Still Life with Pink Roses and Oranges, 2019
oil on panel, 32 x 24"
$3200



Winter Solstice, 1988
oil on linen, 70" x 50"
$12,000
Exhibited in "Imagined Affinities: Echoes of Edwin Dickinson in Contemporary American Painting"
at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2002


Autumn Cupid, 1996
oil on linen, 62" x 50"
$10,000



Early June Bouquet, 2020
oil on panel, 32" x 24"
$3200



Tea Jar and Turban Squash, 2012
oil on panel, 24" x 32"
Private Collection



River with June Bouquet 2012
oil on panel, 24" x 24"
$2800



Still Life with Turquoise Vase, 2011
oil on panel, 24" x 24"
$3200



Two Spring Bouquets with Tree of Life 2011
oil on panel, 24" x 24"
$2800



Apples and Roses, 2000
oil on panel, 24" x 32"
$3200



Fulper Bouquet, 2005
oil on panel, 32" x 24"
$3200



OCTOBER DEMIJOHN, 2019
oil on board, 24 x 32"
$3200



River Bouquet in an Aurene Vase, 2005
Oil on board, 32 x 24"
$3200



Blue Sound Morning, 2016
oil on board, 24" x 32"
$3200


Still Life with Roses and Persimmons, 2016
oil on board, 24 x 24"
$2800


First Snow, 2016
oil on board, 24 x 32"
$3200


Cape Henlopen, 2016
oil on board, 24 x 32"
$3200


Morning Glories, 2016
oil on board, 12 x 10"
Private Collection


Fulper Night Bouquet , 2016
oil on board, 32" x 24''
$3200


Table with Green Apples, 2016
oil on board, 50"x 36"
$6,500


Vase and Rose Bouquet, 2003
Oil on board, 24 x 32"
Private Collection



Set 1 Set 2 Set 3 Set 4 Set 5 Set 6

 

Reviews


Philadelphia painter Scott Noel wrote in a catalog of Trefny's works in 1994, "In their orchestration of objects, fabrics and flowers, Frank Trefny's still life paintings evoke a world of harmonious, sensual richness. The pictures are lush and full, celebrating the pleasures of beautiful things and beautiful painting, but the images also summon complex, layered feelings, the joy of their painterly sensuality leavened with wit and melancholy."

In Art in America magazine (May 1996), esteemed art critic and contributing editor Gerrit Henry writes, "Trefny is a master at turning realistic configurations into painterly abstractions, and his unusually large (for still life) canvases can be read over and over again for their many incidents of exalted painterly brushwork in his renderings of brocades, Chinese screens, pagoda tables, folded and open Oriental fans, homegrown vegetables, flower arrangements and spreads of brilliant silks. Trefny haunts antique and junk stores before spending days assembling his "rude objets" into a setup he can live with--and paint. The results are astonishingly beautiful canvases, presenting many vistas all at once."

Henry, Gerrit, "Frank Trefny," Art in America, May, 1996

Other Publications: Scott, William P., "Frank Trefny," American Artist, December 1987.

 

 

Steven Scott Gallery
18 Peregrine Court
Pikesville, Maryland 21208
410-902-9300