Helaine Blumenfeld | |
|---|---|
| Born | Helaine M. Colton 1942 New York City |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | |
| Occupation | Sculptor |
| Relatives |
|
| Awards | Honorary OBE |
| Website | helaineblumenfeld |
Helaine Blumenfeld (born 1942) is an American sculptor particularly known for her large-scale public sculptures. She creates works primarily in marble and bronze but also in granite and other materials. [1] [2] Examples of her work are in the collections of Clare College, Cambridge, the Courtauld Gallery and the Smithsonian. [3] Amongst her large-scale public works are Family in granite installed in Henry Reuss Federal Plaza in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Tempesta in marble at The Lancasters, London; and Fortuna in bronze at Canary Wharf, London. [3] [4] A fellow and past vice president of the Royal British Society of Sculptors, Blumenfeld was awarded an Honorary OBE in 2011. [5] [1] She lives in the United Kingdom and works there and in Pietrasanta, in Tuscany in central Italy. [6]
Blumenfeld was born in New York City in 1942 and grew up in Jamaica Estates in the Borough of Queens. Her father was a builder. Her mother, a daughter of Russian émigrés, was a poet and painter. [7] [8] She received her BA and MA from the University of Michigan and then went on to study for her PhD in political philosophy at Columbia University. After completing her doctoral dissertation, John Locke: A Science of Ethics, in 1964, she studied art in Paris at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière under the sculptor Ossip Zadkine. [9] [6] . She held her first solo exhibition, a group of polished bronzes, in 1966 at the Palais Pálffy in Vienna. [10] [2]
Blumenfeld had met her husband Yorick in a New York bookshop while she was researching her PhD. They married when she was 20 and had two sons. [7] Their elder son Remy, born in 1965, is a television producer. Their younger son Jared became an environmentalist and served as the EPA Administrator for California and the West under the Obama administration. [11] The Blumenfelds moved permanently to Europe in the late 1960s, eventually settling in the Cambridgeshire village of Grantchester in 1970 where Helaine also has her UK studio. [12]
A turning point in Blumenfeld's career came with her 1974 visit to Pietrasanta in Italy which eventually led her to add marble as one of her primary mediums. She had originally gone there to do bronze casting, but Alicia Penalba, another sculptor working in Pietrasanta, encouraged her to try sculpting in marble and introduced her to master carver Sem Ghelardini. Blumenfeld joined Ghelardini's Studio Sem and began learning stone-carving. At the time, she was the only woman working in the studio's marble yard. In the ensuing years she travelled back and forth from her Grantchester home to Pietrasanta to continue her work with Ghelardini. It was also in Pietrasanta during the 1970s that she met Henry Moore for the first time. He had come to the town to supervise two large-scale sculptures that Ghelardini was carving for him. In 1985 she had a joint exhibition with Moore entitled A British Dialogue: From Perry Green to Cambridge at New York's Alex Rosenberg Gallery. Twelve of her large-scale sculptures in marble and travertine were shown. [13] [14] [15]
By 2013 Blumenfeld's oeuvre had encompassed over 65 commissioned works for public spaces and private collections. The later years of her career have seen several major retrospective exhibitions of her work including those at the Royal British Society of Sculptors (2008), [16] Pietrasanta in the Piazza del Duomo and Chiesa di Sant'Agostino (2011), [17] Salisbury Cathedral (2013), [18] and Bowman Sculpture in London (2015). The London exhibition, entitled Helaine Blumenfeld – Henry Moore A Dialogue 1985–2015, marked the 30th anniversary of her first exhibit with Henry Moore. [19] Hard Beauty, a documentary film on her life and work, was broadcast on Sky Arts in April 2018. [20] The largest solo exhibition to date of the work of Helaine Blumenfeld was presented at Canary Wharf, London, from 16 March to 18 September 2020. [21] [22] Eight of her artwork, including Meridiana, Mysteries, Taking Risks, Illusion, Fortuna, VENUS, ASCENT, and Metamorphosis, are now displayed and free to visit at Canary Wharf Art Trail. [23]
Blumenfeld was elected a fellow of the Royal British Society of Sculptors in 2000 and from 2004 to 2009 served as the society's vice-president. [5] In 2007 she became the first female recipient of the Premio Pietrasanta nel Mondo. She received an honorary OBE in 2011. [6] [1]
Grantchester is a village and civil parish on the River Cam or Granta in South Cambridgeshire, England. It lies about two miles (3 km) south of Cambridge.
Igor Mitoraj was a Polish artist and sculptor. Known for his fragmented sculptures of the human body often created for large-scale public installations, he is considered one of the most internationally recognized Polish sculptors.
Pietrasanta is a town and comune on the coast of northern Tuscany in Italy, in the province of Lucca. Pietrasanta is part of Versilia, on the last foothills of the Apuan Alps, about 32 kilometres (20 mi) north of Pisa. The town is located 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) off the coast, where the frazione of Marina di Pietrasanta is located.
Henry Spencer Moore was an English artist. He is best known for his semi-abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art. Moore also produced many drawings, including a series depicting Londoners sheltering from the Blitz during the Second World War, along with other graphic works on paper.
Anna Chromy was a Czech-German painter and sculptor. At the end of World War II, Chromy's family was expelled from Czechoslovakia to Vienna, Austria. Her family did not have enough money for her to attend art school however, so only after she married and moved to Paris was it possible. She received her education at the École des Beaux-Arts. It was here she realised an interest in Salvador Dalí and other surrealists, and began using the soft colours of William Turner in her paintings.
Andrew Sabin is a British sculptor. He studied at Chelsea College of Art (1979–1983) where he worked as a senior lecturer until 2006.
Family is a public artwork by American artist Helaine Blumenfeld located on the Henry Reuss Federal Plaza, which is in downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. The sculpture is made from Norwegian blue granite. It consists of five forms, with the largest form measuring approximately 89 x 58 x 27 inches. Family was installed in the Henry Reuss Federal Plaza in 1983.
Charles William George Hadcock is a British sculptor known for his monumental sculptures that incorporate elements of geology, engineering, and mathematics. Hadcock's work also draws inspiration from music, philosophy, and poetry. He is a Deputy Lieutenant of Lancashire.
Julie Rotblatt-Amrany is an American sculptor and painter, whose work explores the resurgence of the figure in modern art.
Sophie Ryder is a British sculptor, painter, printmaker and collagist known for her large wire structures. Ryder typically uses bronze, wet plaster embedded with found materials, sheet metal, marble, and stained glass.
Draped Seated Woman 1957–58 is a bronze sculpture by the British artist Henry Moore, cast in an edition of seven in the 1950s. The sculpture depicts a female figure resting in a seated position, with her legs folded back to her right, her left hand supporting her weight, and her right hand on her right leg. The drapery emphasises the female figure, but the facial features are abstracted and barely picked out.
Sibylle Pasche is a Swiss artist and sculptor. She lives and works in Zurich (Switzerland), in Carrara (Italy) and the US. From 1996 to 2000, Pasche studied sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts of Carrara and graduated with the thesis Women – Female Sculptors: The female Sculptor in the History of Art. From 1999 to 2002, she taught at the Liceo Artistico in Zurich.
Alicia Penalba was an Argentine sculptor, tapestry designer, and weaver.
Richard Hudson is a British Sculptor whose organic sculptures are shown internationally and collected widely.
Katherine Gili is a British sculptor. Born in Oxford in 1948, is the daughter of Catalan publisher and translator Joan Gili and sister of the film-maker Jonathan Gili. She graduated from Bath Academy of Art in 1970 and then studied for two years at St Martin's School of Art. Gili subsequently taught at a number of art schools; most notably St Martin's and Norwich between 1972 and 1985.
Wendy Ann Taylor is an English artist and sculptor, specialising in permanent, site-specific commissions. According to her website, she 'was one of the first artists of her generation to “take art out of the galleries and onto the streets”'. Her work typically consists of large sculptures which are displayed to appear carefully balanced.
Richard Stone is a British sculptor and painter and a fellow and trustee of the Royal British Society of Sculptors. He was born in 1974 in England and graduated from Central Saint Martins in 2000. In 2014 Stone was awarded the Brian Mercer Residency for Bronze Casting and in 2013 was awarded Arts Council England funding. Stone works between London and Pietrasanta, Italy.
Sem Ghelardini was an Italian sculptor and artisan. He was known as a master marble-carver and was the founder of Studio Sem in Pietrasanta which has executed the monumental works of many contemporary sculptors, including Henry Moore and Joan Miró. Helaine Blumenfeld and Harold F. Clayton are amongst the artists who learned marble carving at his studio. Ghelardini died in Pietrasanta, the city of his birth, at the age of 69. Studio Sem continues to the present day, directed by his former assistant and collaborator Keara McMartin and his youngest son Pierangelo Ghelardini.
Michael Lyons RSA FRSS was a British sculptor who was instrumental in the creation of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
Media related to Helaine Blumenfeld at Wikimedia Commons
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
| Other | |
