ABOUT BETTY PARSONS
BETTY PARSONS, born in 1900, grew up amid luxury, with homes in New York, Newport and Palm Beach. When she was a child, a fleet of cars emblazoned with the family crest whisked her to Miss Chapin's School and then finishing school.
As a newlywed, she traveled through Europe on a nine-month honeymoon in a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce. But it was not until she lost her fortune that Betty Parsons found her fate, to be, as Ellsworth Kelly said, "an extraordinary woman in the history of modern art."
Disinherited after her divorce, Mrs. Parsons made history on her own. Operating on nothing but her own convictions, she became a legendary art dealer, championing the New York avant-garde in the years after World War II.
From 1946 until her death in 1982, Mrs. Parsons ran the Betty Parsons Gallery in Manhattan, which represented leading names in modern American art. She showed work by Abstract Expressionists like Barnett Newman, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Clyfford Still, as well as succeeding generations of innovators like Mr. Kelly; Agnes Martin, the minimalist, and Richard Tuttle, the Postminimalist sculptor.
"Betty and her gallery helped construct the center of the art world," said Helen Frankenthaler, the painter, who met Parsons in 1950. "She was one of the last of her breed."
Mrs. Parsons's role as a leading promoter of abstract art is well known. Less well known is that she was an artist.
"Betty led a double life," a nephew, William P. Rayner, said. "Being an artist was her first priority. That's why she was such a good dealer and that's why her artists liked her."
This summer three institutions on Long Island are exhibiting Mrs. Parsons's work. One, the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center of East Hampton, is showing her paintings on paper through July 25. The Fine Arts Gallery of the Southampton Campus of Long Island University is exhibiting painted wood "constructions" through July 29, and the Benton Gallery of Southampton is host for an exhibition of oils and works on paper through July 9.
On July 11, L.I.U. at Southampton sponsors a symposium on Mrs. Parsons.
The events are "a fine tribute to someone who has done so much for art," said Arlene Bujese, director of the Benton.
READ MORE at SOURCE: https://www.nytimes.com/1992/06/28/nyregion/betty-parsons-s-2-lives-she-was-artist-too.html
QUOTE ABOUT Betty Parsons
Mrs. Parsons worked nonstop on her art until her death from a stroke at the age of 82. "Betty steadily grew and improved as a person and an artist," Ms. Sterne said. "She was in a state of becoming until the end."
WHAT I WISH FOR YOU TODAY
To be in a state of becoming until the end.