Rosalyn Drexler, the groundbreaking painter whose vibrant Pop art works from the 1960s have gained widespread recognition in recent years, died Wednesday in New York at age 98. A spokesperson for Garth Greenan Gallery in New York, which represented the artist, confirmed her death but did not provide a cause. Drexler's paintings, which depicted Hollywood actors, on-screen violence, and gender subversion, have established her as one of the key figures in the Pop art movement of the 1960s, though she remained relatively obscure for many years.
Before becoming an artist, Drexler had an unusual career as a professional wrestler, performing under the name Rosa Carlo the Mexican Spitfire. In addition to her visual art, she was also an accomplished writer, having authored novels and plays throughout her career. Her 1972 novel "To Smithereens" was republished this year to critical acclaim, with The New York Times naming it one of the best books of 2025 so far.
Drexler's paintings from the 1960s shared many characteristics with the most famous works of the Pop art era. Like Andy Warhol and James Rosenquist, she painted Marilyn Monroe and other movie stars who frequently appeared on screen. Similar to Roy Lichtenstein, she demonstrated an enthusiasm for commercial imagery and the bright colors of advertising. Like Marisol, she seemed to express concern about how media encouraged violence against women.
Her artistic technique involved working with ready-made pictures, applying paint directly onto images whose subject matter was immediately recognizable. However, by painting away the original context of these pictures and surrounding them with fields of blazing color, she transformed familiar images into something entirely new. Art critic Raphael Rubenstein, reviewing Drexler's 2016 survey exhibition at Brandeis University's Rose Art Museum, wrote in Art in America about her distinctive approach to color and composition.
"She turns up the retinal volume again and again in the grounds of her paintings—vast seas of cerulean blue edged by crisp white lines, or enveloping acts of domestic violence; equally riveting cadmium reds, oranges, and crimsons saturating the picture plane beneath angry gorillas, dancing Chubby Checkers, and kissing lovers," Rubenstein observed. He noted her use of Day-Glo yellows against sharp blacks as threatening figures in black suits pointed guns and walked up and down staircases.
Despite their current recognition, Drexler's paintings were not appreciated as significant works during the era when they were created. "I don't think my paintings were seen much back in the 1960s," Drexler told Artforum in 2016. "It was the time for Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism; Pop was just beginning to rear its huge, glittering head. My work was a secret kind of thing."
Her work is no longer secret. Following the Rose Art Museum exhibition, major American institutions began collecting her paintings widely. The Museum of Modern Art, Buffalo AKG Art Museum, and Whitney Museum were among those that acquired their first Drexler paintings within the past decade. Her inclusion in the 2015 Tate Modern exhibition "The World Goes Pop" dramatically expanded recognition of her contribution to the movement's canon.
Born Rosalyn Bronznick in 1937 in New York, she was the daughter of Jewish immigrants from Russia who exposed her to performing arts events. However, she showed little interest in becoming an artist as a child. "I always wanted to be a writer, even when I was a kid," she told the Brooklyn Rail. Despite this, she was drawn to coloring books her mother bought for her and the creations of a friend who drew outlines around objects in found pictures.
Reproductions played a crucial role in Drexler's early artistic education. "We were poor," she told artist Elaine de Kooning in a 1971 ARTnews interview. "It was around the time of the Depression. We owned no art, no books. But a newspaper offered for a few cents, and a coupon, reproductions of famous paintings. My mother sent for a Turner seascape, a Rembrandt self-portrait and a Vermeer. This was the first great art I had ever seen."
After attending Hunter College for just one year, Drexler married Sherman Drexler and moved to Berkeley, California. There, the couple exhibited their art together, with Rosalyn showing assemblages made from what she described as "junk from the street." They returned to New York in 1951, where Drexler briefly pursued her wrestling career under the persona Rosa Carlo the Mexican Spitfire, a name she chose after randomly flipping through a phone book.
"I trained in a hotel room by hitting a pillow," she told the Brooklyn Rail about her wrestling preparation. "In the ring suddenly, I could have broken my back, I was tossed across the ring. Fell correctly though, which was good. I learned how to fall. I was the baby face, because the baby face takes all the punishment until the great retaliation." Years later, Andy Warhol would create silkscreen prints featuring Drexler posing as her wrestling persona.
After touring the United States as a wrestler for three months, Drexler returned to making sculptures, though she received little recognition for this work. Encouragement from sculptor David Smith motivated her to continue. "He said, 'Don't give up sculpture; I've known women sculptors and they stop; don't stop,'" Drexler recalled in the 1971 ARTnews interview. "I feel sort of guilty now because I turned to painting and writing."
Drexler went on to have an illustrious writing career, creating 10 plays and nine novels. These works contained the same quirkiness as her paintings: one book centered around a talking dog, while another focused on a fictionalized version of Rocky, the hero of the sports movie franchise. Her writing often included biographical elements. "To Smithereens," her recently republished 1972 novel, was about the New York art scene and featured a woman named Rosa who becomes a professional wrestler.
Unlike many celebrated painters of the 1960s, Drexler's artistic opportunities remained limited throughout much of her career. She never operated a formal studio and took various jobs outside the art world, working as a masseuse, house cleaner, waitress, and professor to support herself. However, as the history of Pop art has been reappraised in recent years, so too has Drexler's body of work.
In interviews during the later part of her career, Drexler expressed surprise at the recognition she finally received. "I know it's all success, but when it comes this late in life, you miss the people you could share it with," she told Artnet. "It's hard to believe how quietly time really passes." Her late-career recognition serves as a reminder of how art history continues to evolve and how previously overlooked voices can find their rightful place in the cultural conversation.
