Artist Birthday: Jean Follett (1917-1991 US)

Like the Abstract Expressionists, many other American artists were inspired by European modernist movements that occurred before World War II. Jean Follett was an early abstractionist who was influenced by Surrealism and Dada.

Artist Birthday for 5 June: Jean Follett (1917-1991 US)

Jean Follett, Many-Headed Creature, 1958, light switch and socket cooling coils, window screen, nails, facet knob, mirror, twine, cinders, castor, springs, and rope on wood panel, 61 x 61 x 12.1 cm   The Museum of Modern Art, New York, © 2026 Artist or Estate of Artist  (MOMA-P5057)

Around 1950 Follett began to develop her unique style that bridged painting and sculpture. They consisted of constructions of junk parts embedded in thick layers of paint. She used machine parts, light switches, nails, and pieces of pipe, aside from the objects seen in Many-Headed Creature. The inclusion of everyday objects and debris in her assemblages transformed the three-dimensional objects into abstract forms. The objects may have been acquired at a shop at 51 Bond Street which was near her studio.

 Although her works had three-dimensional qualities, she considered herself a painter, and was part of the important 1954 Guggenheim Museum show "Younger American Painters", and the landmark 1964 exhibit "Black, White, and Gray". She showed her assemblages three times at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, including in the groundbreaking "The Art of Assemblage" in 1961.

Background

The enthusiasm with which American artists received European modernism – such as Cubism, Surrealism, and abstraction -- during the first 20 years of the 1900s faded after World War I (1914-1918). Americans were traumatized by the massive destruction of that war in Europe, and shied away from continuing to embrace European modernism. During the Great Depression (1929-1940), a severe world-wide economic downturn, American artists were expected to create art that was uplifting, which engendered movements such as Social Realism and Regionalism that documented positive aspects of American life.

During World War II (1939-1945), American artists again became interested in European modernism when dozens of progressive artists from Europe emigrated to the US to escape Nazi Germany’s war. Key Surrealists such as Matta (1911-2002), Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968)  and André Breton (1896-1966) helped reignite American interest in modernism. Many of the earliest abstract and Surrealist artists were women.

Jean Follett is considered the earliest American artist to create sculpture/paintings which combined found junk metal objects on oil painting two-dimensional support. Follett was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where she studied at the University of Minnesota, and also at the Saint Paul Gallery and School of Art in the late 1930s. She trained under Cameron Booth (1892-1980), a Regionalist-turned-Abstract Expressionist. During World War II she served in the Women's Army Corps. She moved to New York after the war in 1946.

In New York she studied with pioneer abstractionist Hans Hofmann (1880-1966). Hofmann always praised Follett's painting during critiques. She found her greatest inspiration in Surrealism and Dada. Those two movements she studied further in Paris between 1950 and 1951. She shared a studio in New York with Richard Stankiewicz (1922-1983) who was a pioneer of welded metal junk sculptures. Follett and Stankiewicz exhibited together in 1953 and 1954. She was also influenced by Jean Dubuffet's (1901-1985) Art Brut (Raw Art).

Follett's work was exhibited between the mid-1950s and early 1960s, although she failed at a financially successful art career. A 1962 studio fire destroyed much of her existing art. That, combined with financial instability, more or less ended her visibility in the New York art scene. She returned to Minnesota and established a studio, but never returned to New York full time.