Grace Hartigan

Grace Hartigan: The Gift of Attention explores the significant impact mid-century American poets and poetry had on painter Grace Hartigan’s early career during the 1950s and 1960s. Through a compelling introduction and three illuminating essays, the authors explore how key literary figures—supporters that included Daisy Aldan, Barbara Guest, James Merrill, Frank O’Hara, and James Schuyler—sparked Hartigan’s creativity, providing a fuller examination of the art she created during this time. This book not only spotlights Hartigan within the renowned circle of New York School painters and poets but also highlights the influence of several queer writers whose daring work and lifestyles profoundly shaped Hartigan’s outlook on art and life.

The volume accompanies an exhibition of the same name opening at North Carolina Museum of Art, NC in 2025, before traveling to various venues through 2026.

Jared Ledesma
Contributions by Terence Diggory, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Frances Lazare

Author biographies

Jared Ledesma is curator of 20th-century art and contemporary art, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC.

Terence Diggory is emeritus professor of English at Skidmore College.

Rachel Blau DuPlessis is professor emerita of English at Temple University. She is a poet and the author of many volumes of essays and criticism.

Frances Lazare is an art historian and visiting assistant professor, ArtCenter College of Design, Pasadena, CA.

Table of Contents

• • Director’s Foreword by Valerie Hillings
  • Acknowledgments by Jared Ledesma
  • Lenders to the Exhibition
  • Grace Hartigan: Image Maker—An Introduction by Terence Diggory
  • “The Basis of My Own Creation”: Grace Hartigan and Poetic Exchange by Jared Ledesma
  • “Being Together in the World”: Grace Hartigan at the Tiber Press by Frances Lazare
  • A Gestural Eros of Poesis: Hartigan Responds to Guest and O’Hara by Rachel Blau DuPlessis
  • Plates, Poems and Reviews
  • Works List
  • Index
  • Contributors
  • Photo Credits