Romanian-American artist (1910?2011)
Hedda Sterne
|
---|
|
Born
| Hedwig Lindenberg
(
1910-08-04
)
August 4, 1910
|
---|
Died
| April 8, 2011
(2011-04-08)
(aged 100)
|
---|
Known for
| Painting
,
drawing
,
printmaking
,
collage
|
---|
Notable work
| New York VII (1954); Machine 5 (1950); Third Avenue El (1952?53); New York, N.Y., 1955 (1955); New York (1956); Alaska I (1958)
|
---|
Movement
| Surrealism
and
Abstract Expressionism
|
---|
Spouses
|
Friederich Stern
(
m.
1932;
div.
1944)
(
m.
1944;
sep.
1960)
|
---|
Hedda Sterne
(August 4, 1910 ? April 8, 2011)
[1]
was a Romanian-born American artist who was an active member of the
New York School
of painters. Her work is often associated with
Abstract Expressionism
and
Surrealism
.
[2]
She was also the only woman to appear in the famous photograph of abstract expressionist artists dubbed "
The Irascibles
", although the group included other women.
Early life and education
[
edit
]
Sterne was born as Hedwig Lindenberg in
Bucharest
,
Romania
, on August 4, 1910. She was the daughter of Jewish parents Eugenie (
nee
Wexler) and Simon Lindenberg, a language teacher. Her older brother and only sibling, Edouard Lindenberg (1908?1973), would become a prominent conductor in Paris.
[3]
As a young child, Sterne and her brother were educated in music and languages. In addition to Romanian, Sterne was taught to read German, French, and English. She would recall the importance of
German philosophy
texts and art history books in her development as an artist. Initially encouraged to study piano, Sterne eventually succeeded in convincing her parents to allow her to study art instead.
[4]
With the encouragement of
Max Hermann Maxy
, whom Sterne recalled as a student of her father's, she began formal training in 1918. Sterne's first art teacher was Maxy's former professor at the
Bucharest National University of Arts
, the sculptor
Frederic Storck
.
In 1919, Sterne's father Simon died and her mother remarried. By 1921, Sterne was attending the Institutul de Domni?oare Choisy-Mangaru, a private girls' school in Bucharest.
[2]
In the late 1920s, Sterne traveled regularly to
Vienna
, where she took classes in ceramics at the
Kunsthistorisches Museum
. In 1929 she enrolled at the
University of Bucharest
where she studied art history and philosophy with various notable intellectuals, including
Tudor Vianu
,
Mircea Florian
, and
Nae Ionescu
. In 1932, she married Friederich (Fritz) Stern (1905?1982; later known as Frederick (Fred) Stafford) and discontinued her formal education.
Early career and Surrealism
[
edit
]
In addition to her early work in the studio of Frederic Storck, Sterne was one of several young artists in Bucharest working in the studio of
Dada
-cofounder and
Surrealist
painter
Marcel Janco
, who had returned to Bucharest from Switzerland and France in 1921. Sterne became an active member of Bucharest's thriving
avant-garde
communities of artists and writers, and in this way, as she would recall, she "grew up with Surrealism".
[5]
Among her closest friends were
Constructivist
and Surrealist artist
Victor Brauner
, his brother
Theodore Brauner
and their family; painters
Jules Perahim
and
Medi Wexler
, and Wexler's future husband, the surrealist poet
Gheorghe Dinu
.
Beginning in the late 1920s and following her marriage to Fritz Stern in 1932, Sterne traveled frequently between Bucharest and Paris, where she studied briefly in the
ateliers
of
Fernand Leger
and
Andre Lhote
, and at the
Academie de la Grande Chaumiere
.
[6]
Often reconnecting with Victor Brauner in Paris in the 1930s, Sterne closely followed developments in Surrealism and attended exhibitions. She was particularly drawn to the Surrealist practice of
automatism
and by the late 1930s had developed her own unique method of constructing automatic
collages
. Some of these works were included in the Association Artistique Les Surindependants'
11th Exposition du Salon des Surindependants
at the Porte de Versailles, where they drew the attention of
Hans Arp
.
[4]
The following year, her work was shown in the
Societe des Artistes Independants
' 50th annual
Salon des Independants.
[7]
World War II and emigration
[
edit
]
In the summer of 1939, Sterne and her husband returned to Bucharest from France for the last time. With the outbreak of
World War II
in September, the couple began to prepare to leave Europe for the United States. However, Sterne did not accompany her husband in the spring of 1940 when Fritz Stern left for New York. Instead, she remained in Bucharest with her family, where in January 1941 she was witness to the
Bucharest pogrom
and increasing political unrest. After trying for several months to acquire all the necessary visas to leave Romania for the U.S., Sterne finally departed
Lisbon
for New York aboard the
S.S.Excambion
on October 17, 1941.
[8]
Arrival in New York
[
edit
]
Hedda Sterne arrived in New York in late October 1941, where she was reunited with her estranged husband. The couple soon after changed their last name from Stern to Stafford.
[9]
However, by late 1942 she was exhibiting her work under the name "Hedda Sterne". By adding an "e" to the end of her former married name, she maintained a connection to the name she had exhibited under in Europe.
In late 1941, Sterne established a studio and apartment on East 50th Street, nearby
Peggy Guggenheim
's home on
Beekman Place
. The two became close friends, and through Guggenheim, Sterne met and became reacquainted with many of the Surrealist artists she had known in Paris, including
Andre Breton
,
Marcel Duchamp
, and
Max Ernst
.
[4]
Around this time Sterne also met and became close friends with the author
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
. She would later play a critical role in advising Saint-Exupery to use his own drawings to illustrate his book
The Little Prince
.
[10]
In 1942, Sterne was included in the seminal exhibition
The First Papers of Surrealism
, which opened on October 14 at the Whitelaw Reid Mansion in midtown Manhattan. By 1943, Sterne was regularly shown at Peggy Guggenheim's
Art of This Century gallery
in New York, including the 1943
Exhibition by 31 Women
.
[11]
In February 1943, Sterne met fellow artist and Romanian refugee
Saul Steinberg
, whom she would marry on October 11, 1944, after her divorce from Stafford was finalized.
[12]
By the end of 1943, Sterne had also begun her nearly 40-year collaboration with gallerist
Betty Parsons
, who gave Sterne her first solo exhibition in the U.S. at Wakefield Gallery in November. When the
Betty Parsons Gallery
opened in 1947, Sterne was among the first group of artists represented.
The New York School and the "Irascibles"
[
edit
]
Hedda Sterne was included in many major exhibitions of the
New York School
in the 1940s and 1950s, including
Stable Gallery
's
Third Annual Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture
. During the 1950s, Sterne's notable contribution to
Abstract Expressionism
came in the form of her use of commercial
spray paint
to depict motion and light in her abstract renderings of roads, highways, and cityscapes.In 1950, Sterne was a key participant in the "Artists' Sessions at Studio 35," a discussion about the modern art scene in New York and the aims of the artists. In addition to Sterne, speakers included
Robert Motherwell
,
Mark Rothko
,
Barnett Newman
,
Ad Reinhardt
,
Willem de Kooning
,
Hans Hofmann
,
Adolph Gottlieb
,
David Hare
,
Louise Bourgeois
, and
David Smith
, among others. Following the two-day session, on May 20, 1950, Sterne was among 18 painters and ten sculptors who signed an open letter to the president of
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
to protest aesthetically conservative group-exhibition juries.
[3]
The subsequent media coverage of the open letter to the president of
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
, and a now iconic group photograph, gave notoriety to a group of artists including Sterne. After the publication of the letter in the
New York Times
on May 22, 1950, an editorial in
The Herald Tribune
of May 23, 1950, dubbed the group the "Irascible 18" and attacked the artists for "distortion of fact" in claiming the Metropolitan had "contempt" for modern painting.
[13]
Life
magazine's coverage of the protest in their January 15, 1951 edition included a photograph by
Nina Leen
.
[14]
15 of the letter's 28 signees arrived for the photo shoot:
Theodoros Stamos
,
Jimmy Ernst
, Barnett Newman,
James Brooks
, Mark Rothko,
Richard Pousette-Dart
,
William Baziotes
,
Jackson Pollock
,
Clyfford Still
,
Robert Motherwell
,
Bradley Walker Tomlin
, Willem de Kooning, Adolph Gottlieb,
Ad Reinhardt
, and Hedda Sterne.
Although the sculptors
Louise Bourgeois
and
Mary Callery
were among the signers of the letter, Hedda Sterne was the only woman in the photograph. This singularity made her name known to many who were unfamiliar with her work; as she remarked near the end of her life, "I am known more for that darn photo than for 80 years of work."
[15]
[16]
“If I had an ego, it would bother me.” Plus, she said, “it is a lie.” Why? “I was not an Abstract Expressionist. Nor was I an Irascible.”
[17]
Mature career
[
edit
]
In 1963, Sterne was granted a
Fulbright Fellowship
in painting, and spent more than a year working in
Venice
. Returning to New York in 1964, Sterne eschewed pressure to create a consistent and "marketable" style of artwork. She would express aversion to the idea of creating a "career" as an artist, preferring instead to follow her own path of expression and discovery. Her work of the 1960s and forward is often regarded as a progression of "series," following Sterne's ongoing and developing interests in visual perception,
semiotics
,
existentialism
, and
meditation
.
[2]
Though Sterne began to disengage socially from the art world and lead an increasingly private life in the 1960s, she continued to be involved in many exhibitions with Betty Parsons Gallery, CDS Gallery, and others. In 1977, her first retrospective exhibition was held at the
Montclair Art Museum
. In 1985, her second retrospective, "Hedda Sterne: Forty Years" was held at the
Queens Museum
. In November 1992, she met the art dealer Philippe Briet, and began a sustainable friendship which led to several projects until his death in February 1997. In October 1994, Briet introduced writer
Michel Butor
to Hedda Sterne, which began their collaboration on a book published in September 1995,
La Revolution dans l'Arboretum.
In 2006, her third retrospective exhibition, "Uninterrupted Flux: Hedda Sterne; A Retrospective" was held at the
Krannert Art Museum
.
[3]
Sterne was a prolific artist who maintained a daily practice of art-making throughout much of her career. She continued to create new work in her 80s and 90s, even while affected by
macular degeneration
. By 1998, she could no longer paint, but continued to draw. Between 2004 and 2008, Sterne suffered two
strokes
, which progressively affected her vision and movement.
[6]
Hedda Sterne died on April 8, 2011, at the age of 100.
Relationship with Saul Steinberg
[
edit
]
Hedda Sterne and
Saul Steinberg
met in February 1943. Both were Romanian Jews and recent emigrants from Bucharest, though they had not known each other in Europe.
[18]
Soon after their meeting, Steinberg left New York as an ensign in the
US Naval Reserve
. He spent the remainder of 1943 and much of 1944 stationed in China, India, North Africa and Italy, providing pictorial propaganda, primarily for the
OSS
's division of
Morale Operations
.
[19]
Sterne and Steinberg maintained correspondence while Steinberg was stationed abroad, much of which has been archived in the
Hedda Sterne Papers
at the
Smithsonian's Archives of American Art
and in the
Saul Steinberg Papers
at
Yale University
's
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
. In 1944, Sterne agreed to marry Steinberg on his return and traveled to
Reno, Nevada
, to secure a divorce from her first husband. Sterne and Steinberg were married in New York on October 11, 1944.
Life Magazine
featured a profile of the couple in their August 27, 1951 issue, titled "Steinberg and Sterne: Romanian-Born Cartoonist and Artist-Wife Ambush the World with Pen and Paintbrush".
[20]
Sterne and Steinberg lived together in New York until 1960, when they separated. Although they maintained a close friendship and remained married until Steinberg's death in 1999,
[21]
she once remarked that their marriage license was “the first of Saul’s phony documents, maybe.”
[22]
After Sterne's death in 2011, she was buried in
Green-Wood Cemetery
in Brooklyn, New York.
[23]
Awards
[
edit
]
Sterne was awarded second prize at the
Art Institute of Chicago
Annual in 1957. In 1963, she was granted a
Fulbright Fellowship
, and studied in Venice. In 1967, her work won first prize at the
Art Institute of Newport
Annual. The
American Academy of Arts & Letters
awarded her a "Childe Hassam Purchase Award" in 1971, and a "Hassam and Speicher Purchase Fund Award" in 1984.
[24]
In 1999, the
French Minister of Culture
awarded Sterne
Chevalier
of the
Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
.
Artistic style
[
edit
]
Sterne never liked to define her art or herself into any group socially or artistically. In
Eleanor Munro
's book
Originals: American Women Artists
, Sterne remarked:
I believe ... that isms and other classifications are misleading and diminishing. What entrances me in art is what cannot be entrapped in words.
[25]
Grace Glueck wrote:
Hedda Sterne views her widely varied works more as "in flux" than as definitive statements. She has maintained a stubborn independence from styles and trends, including Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism ... Although she never developed a signature style, Ms. Sterne's explorations have produced a small universe of evocative images.
[26]
Legacy
[
edit
]
Sterne has been often overlooked in art historical narratives of the post-war American art scene. At the time of her death, possibly the last surviving artist of the first generation of the
New York School
, Hedda Sterne viewed her widely varied works more as
in flux
than as definitive statements.
[2]
In 2006, the art historian Josef Helfenstein wrote:
From the very beginning of her outstanding but unknown career, Sterne maintained an individual profile in the face of
Jackson Pollock
,
Willem de Kooning
,
Mark Rothko
, and
Barnett Newman
, all of whom she knew personally. Her independence reflected an immense artistic and personal integrity. The astonishing variety of Sterne's work, spanning from her initial appropriation of surrealist techniques, to her investigation of conceptual painting, and her unprecedented installations in the 1960s, exemplify her adventurous spirit. Yet, the heterogeneity of her styles, and her complete disinterest in the commercially driven art world, have contributed to her exclusion from the canon. When the heroic male narratives of modernism begin to fade, we may, eventually, be ready to recognize this amazingly idiosyncratic body of work. Sterne's art is, indeed, a manifesto in favor of the untamable forces of the mind and the continually changing flux of life.
[27]
In 2016 her biography was included in the exhibition catalogue
Women of Abstract Expressionism
organized by the
Denver Art Museum
.
[28]
In 2016, Sterne's work was exhibited at
Van Doren Waxter
under the title "Machines 1947-1951".
The New York Times
wrote:
Her first show at the gallery, it features paintings and monotype prints that were made at the same moment: the decade after Ms. Sterne arrived in New York from Bucharest, Romania, having barely escaped the Nazis. These muted, mostly tan and blue canvases depict machines inspired by farm equipment in Vermont, and reveal her sometime alliance with the Surrealists (especially a fellow Romanian artist, Victor Brauner). Anthropomorphic and uncanny, the paintings in "Machines" also recall the work of Francis Picabia, Eduardo Paolozzi and Lee Lozano ... It is wonderful to see Ms. Sterne finally coming out from behind the famous photograph and being seriously considered as a painter.
[29]
Collections
[
edit
]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Art Daily,
Hedda Sterne, America's Last Original Abstract Expressionist and Sole Woman in the Group, Dies
Retrieved April 10, 2011.
- ^
a
b
c
d
Sterne, Hedda, Sarah L Eckhardt, Josef Helfenstein, and Lawrence Rinder.
Uninterrupted flux: Hedda Sterne, a retrospective
. Champaign, Ill.:
Krannert Art Museum
and Kinkead Pavilion, 2006.
- ^
a
b
c
Eckhardt, 2006.
- ^
a
b
c
Oral history interview with Hedda Sterne, 1981 December 17. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-hedda-sterne-13262
- ^
"Patterns of Thought: Hedda Sterne - Magazine - Art in America"
.
www.artinamericamagazine.com
. April 15, 2011
. Retrieved
August 31,
2017
.
- ^
a
b
Simon, Joan.
Patterns of thought: Hedda Sterne
.
Art in America
, 2007.
- ^
"Select Exhibitions"
.
The Hedda Sterne Foundation
. Retrieved
September 1,
2017
.
- ^
"HEDDA STERNE: Passport to Safety"
.
brooklynrail.org
. April 6, 2016
. Retrieved
August 31,
2017
.
- ^
"Chronology"
.
The Hedda Sterne Foundation
. Retrieved
August 31,
2017
.
- ^
Schiff, Stacy (July 27, 2011).
Saint-exupery: A Biography
. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
ISBN
9780307798398
.
- ^
Butler, Cornelia H.; Schwartz, Alexandra (2010).
Modern Women: Women Artists at The Museum of Modern Art
. New York: Museum of Modern Art. p.
45
.
ISBN
9780870707711
.
- ^
Davison, Phil (April 16, 2011).
"Hedda Sterne: Avant garde artist reluctantly ranked among the Abstract Expressionists"
.
The Independent
.
Archived
from the original on May 9, 2022
. Retrieved
November 16,
2020
.
- ^
"The Irascible Eighteen". The New York Herald Tribune. May 23, 1950.
- ^
"IRASCIBLE GROUP OF ADVANCED ARTISTS LED FIGHT AGAINST SHOW"
.
Life
: 34?38. January 15, 1951. Retrieved November 27, 2012.
- ^
Boxer, Sarah.
"The Last Irascible | Sarah Boxer"
.
ISSN
0028-7504
. Retrieved
September 12,
2023
.
- ^
Schwabsky, Barry (May 25, 2015). "Inside Out".
The Nation
: 27?30.
- ^
Boxer, Sarah.
"The Last Irascible | Sarah Boxer"
.
ISSN
0028-7504
. Retrieved
September 12,
2023
.
- ^
Bair, Deirdre (November 20, 2012).
Saul Steinberg: A Biography
. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
ISBN
9780385534987
.
- ^
"World War II - Saul Steinberg Foundation"
.
Saul Steinberg Foundation
. Retrieved
September 1,
2017
.
- ^
"Steinberg and Sterne: Romanian-Born Cartoonist and Artist-Wife Ambush the World with Pen and Paintbrush"
.
Life
. August 27, 1951.
- ^
"1960s Introduction | Saul Steinberg Foundation"
.
Saul Steinberg Foundation
. Retrieved
November 16,
2020
.
- ^
Boxer, Sarah.
"Sarah Boxer on Deirdre Bair's Saul Steinberg"
.
www.artforum.com
. Retrieved
September 12,
2023
.
- ^
"2018 Green-Wood Annual Report | Discover the Enchantment"
. Retrieved
July 6,
2021
.
- ^
Portraits.
Lee Ault & Company
, New York, N. Y.. October 15 - November 8, 1975.
- ^
Munro, Eleanor (April 6, 2000).
Originals: American Women Artists
. Perseus Books Group.
ISBN
9780306809552
.
- ^
Glueck, Grace.
Hedda Sterne
.
The New York Times
. March 10, 2006.
- ^
Helfenstein, Josef. Foreword in
Uninterrupted Flux: Hedda Sterne, a retrospective
. Champaign, Ill.:
Krannert Art Museum
and Kinkead Pavilion, 2006.
- ^
Marter, Joan M. (2016).
Women of abstract expressionism
. Denver New Haven: Denver Art Museum Yale University Press. p. 199.
ISBN
9780300208429
.
- ^
Schwendener, Martha (March 24, 2016),
"Review: Beyond Irascible, the Art of Hedda Sterne"
,
The New York Times
, retrieved
March 26,
2016
- ^
"(Women) Artists from the Collection, 1800-2022"
.
Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art in St. Joseph, MO
. Retrieved
October 28,
2023
.
- ^
"Hedda Sterne"
.
Amon Carter Museum of American Art
. Retrieved
October 28,
2023
.
- ^
"Hedda Sterne"
.
The Art Institute of Chicago
. 1910
. Retrieved
October 28,
2023
.
- ^
"Hedda Sterne"
.
Buffalo AKG Art Museum
. Retrieved
October 28,
2023
.
- ^
"Hedda Sterne | New York #2"
.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
. Retrieved
October 28,
2023
.
- ^
"Hedda Sterne"
.
Museum of Modern Art
. Retrieved
October 29,
2023
.
- ^
"Hedda Sterne"
.
National Gallery of Art
. Retrieved
October 29,
2023
.
- ^
"Hedda Sterne, "Roads, No. 6 " (1956)"
.
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
. December 28, 2014
. Retrieved
October 28,
2023
.
- ^
"Hedda Sterne"
.
Smithsonian American Art Museum
. Retrieved
October 28,
2023
.
- ^
"New York, No. 1"
.
Toledo Museum of Art
. Retrieved
October 28,
2023
.
- ^
"Untitled (Ex 86, #10)"
.
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
. Retrieved
October 28,
2023
.
- ^
"Hedda Sterne"
.
Whitney Museum of American Art
. Retrieved
October 28,
2023
.
External links
[
edit
]
Books
[
edit
]
- Hedda Sterne; Sarah L Eckhardt; Josef Helfenstein; Lawrence Rinder; Krannert Art Museum.;
University of Virginia
.
Uninterrupted flux : Hedda Sterne, a retrospective
. (Champaign, Ill. :
Krannert Art Museum
and Kinkead Pavilion, 2006) (Worldcat link:
Uninterrupted flux: Hedda Sterne, a retrospective
)
ISBN
1-883015-37-5
;
ISBN
978-1-883015-37-4
- Hedda Sterne;
Queens Museum of Art
.
Hedda Sterne, forty years : the Queens Museum, February 2?April 14, 1985
. (Flushing, N.Y. : The Museum, 1985) (Worldcat link:
Hedda Sterne, forty years: the Queens Museum, February 2-April 14, 1985.
)
OCLC
12215770
- Michel Butor, Hedda Sterne,
La Revolution dans l'Arboretum
(New York: Philippe Briet Editions, 1995). A collection of four poems by Michel Butor written for Hedda Sterne, and fifteen drawings by Hedda Sterne selected by Michel Butor from four series. Published in 500 copies, this work was printed in May 1995 in
Albuquerque
, New Mexico. The fifteen color plates are of the same dimensions as the original drawings. The set of twelve folios is presented in a white case made in
Phoenix, Arizona
.
- Cosmin Nasui,
Hedda Sterne ? The Discovery of Early Years 1910-1941
(
PostModernism Museum Publishing House 2015
,
ISBN
978-606-93751-1-2
). Study presenting the research on the Avangardist Romanian born artist Hedda Sterne's life and work in Europe, until she left for New Work in 1941. Dimensions: 6×9 in, 142 pgs.
- Eleanor C Munro.
Originals : American women artists
(New York :
Da Capo Press
, 2000) (Worldcat link:
Originals: American women artists
)
ISBN
0-306-80955-9
;
ISBN
978-0-306-80955-2
- Marika Herskovic,
New York School Abstract Expressionists Artists Choice by Artists,
(New York School Press, 2000.)
ISBN
0-9677994-0-6
. p. 38
Articles
[
edit
]
- PostModernism Museum presents works by Hedda Sterne at Art 15 London
, Artdaily.org, May 21, 2015.
- Glueck, Grace.
"Art in Review; Hedda Stern"
, "
New York Times
", March 10, 2006. Accessed April 13, 2008.
- Simon, Joan. "Patterns of thought: Hedda Sterne".
Art in America,
95.2 2007. 110?59.
- Boxer, Sarah. "
The Last Irascible
," New York Review of Books, December 23, 2010.
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