Spotlight: Fonchen Lord Discussion

Join Curator of Contemporary Art Katherine Pill and Ann Rogers, curator of the 2013 exhibition Fonchen Lord: A Retrospective at Florida Southern College for a discussion about Lord’s unique artistic practice. Free with admission; refreshments will be served.

Florence U. “Fonchen” Lord (1911–1993) was a painter and sculptor based primarily in Lakeland, Florida. This Spotlight exhibition is the first time that her work has been shown at the Museum of Fine Arts, and includes both her paintings from the 1960s and the lacquered, large-scale sculptures of her later career. Interested in the interaction of color and its potential for movement, Lord progressed from Op Art-influenced canvases to three-dimensional sculpture in order to fully explore the capacity of seemingly static forms to shift visually. Of her evolution toward sculpture, she said it derived from a “need to free myself from the shackles of frames [and] two-dimensional flat canvas.”

Lord was born in St. Louis, Missouri. She earned an A.B. from Radcliffe College and an M.A. in history from Washington University in St. Louis. Lord moved to Lakeland, Florida in 1949 with her husband, where she was active in arts organizations both locally and nationally until the end of her life.

Cover image courtesy of Ethan Early, 2017. Installation view of Spotlight: Fonchen Lord at the Museum of Fine Arts.