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FeedPortrait of the Artist
Courtesy Margaret Lefranc Foundation
Marion Love, Betty Bauer, Alic Marriott and Margaret Lefranc ca. 1946
Margaret Lefranc’s circle of acquaintances reads like a Who’s Who of New Mexico culture: Randall Davey, Georgia O’Keeffe, Oliver LaFarge, Nicolai Fechin, Maria Chabot, and the photographer Laura Gilpin—as well as Santa Fean founders Betty Bauer and Marian Love. That her name is less familiar today than theirs, however, speaks not so much to talent as to disposition. A prolific artist who lived at the center of Santa Fe’s creative culture for half a century, Lefranc produced a large and varied body of Modernist paintings, drawings, and monoprints. But until the age of 78, much of her art was never exhibited.
Born in Brooklyn in 1907 to an entrepreneurial Russian father, Lefranc began painting at age six, started classes at The Art Students League by 12, and as a teenager studied with some of the leading artists in Europe—largely in Berlin and Paris. During her years in France, she would paint in open studios in the mornings and afternoons, sketch at cafés during her lunch break, and visit galleries—shows by Matisse and Cézanne—whenever she could. One critic, inspired by a self-portrait in charcoal at Lefranc’s first show (in Paris in 1928), declared that her career “promises to be brilliant.”
But Lefranc’s passion for making art did not translate into instant fame, fortune, or even an impressive list of exhibitions. Back in New York, circa 1925, a friend brought 
Lefranc and her portfolio to Alfred Stieglitz’s influential gallery An American Place. “Young lady,” Steiglitz told Lefranc, “you are obviously very gifted. But you are also very French. … Come back after you have lived in America for ten years. I cannot take you, as young as you are and as French as you are.” Lefranc never did return. “She just didn’t like promoting her own work,” says Sandra McKenzie, who, late in Lefranc’s life, became her partner, promoter, and biggest fan.
Lefranc’s career instead came to be defined by her desire to live on her own terms. In 1939, she drove the family Dodge west for her first visit to New Mexico. Stopping for a few months in Taos, she moved into a house owned by Frieda Lawrence, the wife of novelist D.H. Lawrence, only to discover the rental also had been promised to a poet named W.H. Auden. Despite their rough introduction, Auden and Lefranc took a trip together that included visits with poet Witter Bynner and potter Maria Martinez. “From my first encounter with the varied beauty of the land and sky of New Mexico,” she later wrote, “I have been in love with where I live and what I see.”
In 1945, leaving an unsatisfying East Coast factory job and ill-fated marriage, Lefranc returned for good to New Mexico, rededicating herself to art making. Her pieces from that era include crisp architectural studies and lush, inventive portraits, some of which she displayed at Santa Fe’s Museum of Fine Arts during its “open door policy” era, in four shows. She also painted a mural of Zozobra for El Nido restaurant in Tesuque and illustrated a book about Martinez (written by Lefranc’s longtime partner Alice Marriott) that won recognition from the Library of Congress. She continued to paint and make prints, drawing strength from her practice after the heartbreaking end of her relationship with Marriott, but, frustrated by politics and chauvinism, she largely gave up showing her work.
For the next six decades, she split her time between her Santa Fe adobe and a bungalow in Coconut Grove, Florida. That’s where, at Christmas dinner in 1985, Lefranc met McKenzie (as her friends call her)—half her age, but to whom she was instantly, magnetically drawn. Then a Washington D.C.–based corporate executive, McKenzie began promoting Lefranc’s art, first landing her a show at the Governor’s Gallery at the state capitol back in Santa Fe, then setting up a series of gallery shows. Lefranc was an overnight success, after 75 years of painting. She was awarded New Mexico’s prestigious 
Governor’s Award and became the subject of numerous articles. “Her artworks demonstrate her great sensitivity to the environment and deep understanding of artistic traditions, trends, and movements,” explains Stuart Ashman, secretary of the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs (who, as former director of the Governor’s Gallery and the Museum of Fine Arts, helped revive Lefranc’s career). “She was committed to experimenting and taking risks.” One of Lefranc’s proudest moments came just before her death in 1998, when one of her pieces was invited into an exhibition in Paris, the site of her earliest recognition as an artist. “I’ve come full circle, haven’t I?” she noted from her hospital bed.
McKenzie describes the years since Lefranc’s death, at 91, as difficult. Members of the Lefranc family disputed her will, suing both McKenzie and Margaret’s estate, which includes some 1,000 works. Six years and five lawsuits later, McKenzie won the legal battles. And this month, she’ll celebrate Lefranc’s unsung career in grand style, with an exhibition of her partner’s works at the Gerald Peters Gallery in Santa Fe (see sidebar).
Yet amid the current flurry of activity around Lefranc, McKenzie still clearly recalls their first meeting. “A friend of mine said, ‘Let’s go visit this little old lady,’” she says. “But I saw something beneath the surface. I didn’t see age. I immediately saw her creativity and real soul. It was always like that. As far as I was concerned, Margaret could do no wrong.”
