The painting hangs on a side wall in my Dallas office, but always draws attention.
It’s become a reference point for me, and an incitement to break boundaries. It shows, without compromise, the ability of nature to take circles and lines and twist them into a shape that holds not only life, but beauty within its distortion. A rare thing.
If I can harness that odd, thorny symmetry, I can design structures that will both challenge the mind and lift the soul.
Astrid knows it was painted by the ‘flapper girl’, as she calls her. But she doesn’t care, even though Frances is now world-famous. Not for the aloe and similar, exquisite work, but for the Fire Portrait. It hangs in a gallery in London. I went to see it on a recent trip and had to queue.
It’s been widely reviewed in the global press.
A modern classic, is the consensus.
A Mona Lisa for the age of the Cold War, budding civil rights, uncertain freedom.412
Haunting Portrait Hints at Turmoil, headlined one newspaper.
Fractured Society, says another.
An Omen, says a third …
Is Frances happy? She said she would never leave her husband, but I know he has died and that she has a son.
I’m tempted to go back.