LONDON.- Gazelli Art House announced its representation of the Lilly Fenichel Foundation, formalising a relationship developed over several years and marking a new chapter in the international recognition of Austrian-born American artist Lilly Fenichel (1927–2016).
The representation comes at a pivotal moment in the reassessment of Fenichel’s place within post-war American abstraction. Over a career spanning seven decades, she moved between some of its most significant artistic centres — San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, and New Mexico — while maintaining an uncompromising independence from the movements and categories that surrounded her. Her work evolved continually, from the gestural language of her early paintings to geometric abstraction, sculpture, and experiments with unconventional materials, resisting any singular definition of her work.
As the centenary of Fenichel’s birth approaches in 2027, Gazelli Art House will work closely with the Foundation to expand international awareness of her practice through exhibitions, institutional engagement, research, and scholarship. The partnership will culminate in a major solo exhibition at Gazelli Art House New York in 2027, marking the centenary of the artist’s birth. The announcement also comes amid renewed institutional attention to Fenichel’s work, with a series of museum presentations across the United States at Wichita Art Museum, Muscarelle Museum of Art, Speed Art Museum, Grinnell College Museum of Art, and Mobile Museum of Art.
This September, Gazelli Art House will present Fenichel’s work in two concurrent presentations in New York. At The Armory Show 2026 (September 24–27, Stand 424), Continuous Abstraction brings her work into dialogue with Gillian Ayres, Alice Baber, Sandra Blow, Perle Fine, Grace Hartigan, Helen Pashgian, and Joan Truckenbrod. Fenichel will simultaneously feature in Put the Kettle On (September 23–October 31, 2026), the inaugural exhibition at Gazelli Art House’s new gallery at 545 West 25th Street in Chelsea.
Charles Martin, Trustee of the Lilly Fenichel Foundation, said: “Lilly was an important and enigmatic artist whose brilliant oeuvre defies definition as she defied the commercial, male-dominated art world of the day. It was that defiance, as well as being part of the feminist movement, that meant that she, along with many other women artists of the second half of the twentieth century, did not get the recognition that she deserved during her lifetime. As we approach her centenary next year, we are so excited to be working with Gazelli Art House to bring her work to wider attention both in Europe where she was born and in the US, where she lived and worked. The Lilly Fenichel Foundation is an art education charity, and we look forward to the support for our work that this important relationship will bring.”
Lilly Fenichel (1927–2016) was an Austrian-born American artist whose seven-decade career encompassed painting, drawing and sculpture. Born in Vienna, she fled Nazi-occupied Austria with her family before settling in California. She studied at the Chouinard Art Institute and California School of Fine Arts, where she studied under figures including Mark Rothko and Clyfford Still, and subsequently lived and worked in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, and New Mexico.
