Creative Types: Frankie York

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For nearly four decades, New Editions Gallery has been a defining force in Lexington’s art landscape, and owner Frankie York has been at the center of it, curating more than 100 exhibits and championing dozens of artists during her career. Now, as she prepares to retire at year’s end, closing New Editions and handing the space over to a Louisville-based gallerist, it’s a fitting moment to revisit her career: how it started and how it unfolded over the past four decades.

While York has always had art in her blood, she was originally on another path altogether. After growing up in various places throughout the midwest, she followed her father’s footsteps in attending Hamilton College in upstate New York. 

“At the time I thought I would become a doctor like my dad and grandfather,” she said. “I think I got a C in chemistry, and studying biology was hard, so pretty quickly I saw that maybe medicine wasn’t for me.”

Instead, she shifted to art and design, taking inspiration from a life surrounded by the creative work of her mother, stepmother and paternal grandmother. 

“My mother was an artist,” said York. “When my dad was working at the University of Chicago they took night classes at the Art Institute together. They started painting, and she really, really embraced it and excelled at it. She was actually preparing for her first art show in Chicago when she died of an aneurysm when I was 10.”

York’s stepmother was an expert quilter and certified quilt appraiser who was instrumental in establishing the Kentucky Heritage Quilt Society and the National Quilt Museum, and her grandmother was an acclaimed interior designer in Lincoln, Nebraska. 

“[My grandmother] had a wonderful eye. I don’t remember the homes I grew up in so much, but I remember every fabric, every drapery, every decorative item in my grandparents’ home,” York said. “I can almost feel the fabric on the couch, even now.”

A couple years into college, York started applying to work at galleries in New York City. 

“A lovely couple hired me to work at their poster gallery, and I started learning about framing,” she said. “From there I moved on to a gallery in Santa Fe, and I stayed there for a year or two before coming to Kentucky.”

When York’s father became the chair of the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine in the 1980s, he and her stepmother moved to Lexington. York followed and enrolled in UK’s interior design program. With previous gallery experience and a degree in hand, she jumped into small business ownership in 1988, when she opened New Editions, a contemporary art gallery, in Dudley Square at the age of 28.

The gallery remained in Dudley Square for one year before merging with another gallery owned by local artist Debbie Westerfield, with whom York worked for several years before Westerfield left the gallery to focus on her own art. When that location sold, York and her husband bought a space on Euclid Avenue in Chevy Chase, where the gallery remained for a number of years.

In 2001, York sold New Editions to an employee and stepped away to focus on her two toddlers. The gallery changed hands for a second time in 2006, and in 2009, York finally reacquiring New Editions again, after an eight year hiatus. The gallery relocated to its current home on Short Street in downtown Lexington in 2014, and New Editions’ final show, a tribute to Mona Lisa featuring 28 artists, will be on display through Dec. 23, 2025. 

The idea for the show came from Marsha Cone, an artist that York has represented who knew she was thinking about retirement. 

“She had a number of ideas for me, and one of them happened to be a show reimagining the Mona Lisa,” York explained. “I thought it sounded like a lot of fun and ran with it.”

The show consists of 26 pieces by artists who have Kentucky ties, including Arturo Sandoval and local architect Graham Pohl among others. Using a variety of media, each artist is presenting their interpretation of Da Vinci’s famous old master, which is widely considered the most famous painting of all time for a handful of reasons: its groundbreaking use of his signature sfumato, a hazy soft focus technique that eliminates hard lines and borders; a 1911 heist during which the painting was stolen from the Louvre in Paris; and the subject’s alluring and enigmatic expression. Opening in late November, the show will close on Dec. 23, marking the last day for York and New Editions. In late February, gallerist Daniel Pfalzgraf, owner of the Louisville-based Wheelhouse Gallery, will open a new gallery in the space. 

As to what is next for York, she has plans to assist with an upcoming retrospective of artists Rodney Hatfield and Lynn Sweet at the Headley-Whitney Museum, followed by time with family. 

“Rodney and Lynn are artists who are much-loved in the community, and because I’ve represented them for so long, I’m going to be very active in helping put that together,” she said. “Past that, I just want to travel and visit my sons more. And I want to spend more time with my dad, who is 97 now.”

As much as there is to look forward to, retiring from a career that one loved often brings a bittersweet feeling. Fortunately for York, the favorite part of her work is one that will endure.  

“The greatest gift I’ve received from owning New Editions is the friendships I’ve developed with the artists and the patrons,” she said. “Those relationships came about because of this work, and that is the real gift. And it’s a gift that I’ve been able to do this for so long. I’m so grateful for it.”  

IF YOU GO: “Mona Lisa” at New Editions Gallery, 500 W. Short St.

For the final exhibit at New Editions Gallery, 26 artists who either live in Kentucky or have lived here in the past have interpreted the Mona Lisa, in varying media of the same size (24x18”). The show will be on display Nov. 21-Dec. 23. Gallery hours and more info at www.neweditionsgallery.com.