Steven Scott Gallery

s Steven Scott Gallery

Frank Trefny

Biography

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 forty-five 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 are exhibiting his tenth solo show of new paintings with the gallery in 2016.

Fair Hill, February Morning, 2014
Oil on board, 24 x 32"
Private Collecion

February Ice on the Delaware, 2014
Oil on board, 24 x 32"
$3,200

Camellia and Golden Cowrie, 2012
Oil on board, 12 x 16"
$1,200

Black Tulips, 2012
Oil on board, 20 x 12"
Private Collection

June Flowers in a Trumpet Vase, 2014
Oil on board, 32 x 24"
$3,200

November Sound, 2013
Oil on board, 24 x 32"
Private Collection

November Dahlias, 2013
Oil on board, 24 x 24"
$2,800

October Bouquet on a Stone Wall, 2014
Oil on board, 32 x 24"
Private Collection

New Castle Still Life with Teapot, 2013
Oil on board, 24 x 32"
Private Collection

June Bouquet with Poppies after Rain, 2012
Oil on board, 24 x 32"
$3,200

Still Life with Pewter Charger
Oil on linen, 34 x 40"
$5,000

Magnolias and Black Vase
Oil on board, 24 x 32"
$3,200

Autumn Bouquet in a Green Jar
Oil on board, 32 x 24"
$3,200

Still Life with Poppies and Tree of Life
Oil on board, 24 x 24"
$2,800

Round Table Still Life with Spring Bouquet
Oil on board, 24 x 24"
$2,800

Tulips in a Blue Vase and Oranges
Oil on board, 24 x 24"
Private Collection

Black Vase with Spring Flowers
Oil on board, 24 x 16"
$2,200

Atlantic Camellia
Oil on board, 16 x 20"
$1,800

Camellias and Oranges
Oil on board, 24 x 16"
$1,800

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.