Frances Willner

Fran was an award-winning artist whose work has been exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and in galleries throughout New Jersey. She began her eight-decade career as a fashion designer before moving into painting, printmaking, found-art sculpture, book and paper-making, and other multi-media arts. She studied art at the American School of Fine Arts, Newark School of Fine Arts, and Fairleigh Dickinson University.

For many years Fran taught art at the NJ Center for the Visual Arts, the Newark Museum, and Union and Mercer County Colleges. She was actively teaching until just weeks before her death. In 1994, she co-founded Art Share: An Artist’s Weekend Retreat, and at the age of 89, she co-curated an exhibition at the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey called "Chairs, Form Follows Vision," as well as other artist organized fund raising projects,The Book Project, and the Glove Project.

Fran was matriarch of her family. This Thanksgiving—her favorite holiday—she hosted dinner at her home as she had for decades, surrounded by four generations of family and close friends. With her husband Dr. Milton Willner (1916-1989) she raised sons Andrew and Neil, and daughter Terry. She will be sorely missed by her children and their spouses; Jo-Ellen Trilling, Eve Willner, and Jon Tainow; her grandchildren David, Emily, and Jessie Willner, Mathew and Daniel Tainow and their spouses and extended families; her great-grandchildren Jake and Jordan Willner, Millie and Milo Tainow, and Fiona Willner Goulka; her nieces and nephews; and the many beloved members of the merged Tainow-Wimmer-Charin-Willner clan. Fran was dearly loved by and inspiring to more of her family and friends than it is possible to list. Her irrepressible creativity, curiosity, whimsy, and enthusiasm for life and art touched and energized so many.

Donations in Frances' memory are welcomed for the Frances Willner Fund for Home Health Care Advocacy, at the Community Health Law Project, 185 Valley Street, South Orange, NJ 07079, 973-275 1175, www.CHLP.org.