Amaranth Roslyn Ehrenhalt (January 15, 1928 – March 16, 2021) was an American painter, sculptor, and writer, who spent the majority of her career living and working in Paris, France before returning to New York City.

Early life and education

Ehrenhalt was born in

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.bookkeeper. Ehrenhalt was raised in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

. As a child, she expressed a passion for art, and by the age of twelve, she was enrolled in a Saturday morning program for artistically gifted children at the

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin Fr ...

, followed a few years later by art classes at

Fleisher Art Memorial Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial is a set of four buildings consisting of the former Church of the Evangelists and St. Martin's College for Indigent Boys. Previously an Episcopal church in the Bella Vista neighborhood of South Philadelphia, it is ...

. Ehrenhalt graduated from Olney High School in 1945, and went on to study for one year at the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Arts (now known as the University of Arts, Philadelphia), after which, she was awarded an Honors Scholarship to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. While attending PAFA, she simultaneously earned a bachelor's degree from the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

studying French, English, Psychology, and Art History. From 1949 to 1951, Ehrenhalt completed additional studies in Art Appreciation via the Barnes Foundation, attending afternoon classes per week.

Early 1950s New York

Ehrenhalt lived in New York City during the heyday of the New York School of Abstract Expressionism. Ehrenhalt is officially recognized as part of the second wave of American

Abstract Expressionists Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...

. She socialized with Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline, among others. Her social life revolved around the

Cedar Tavern The Cedar Tavern (or Cedar Street Tavern) was a bar and restaurant at the eastern edge of Greenwich Village, New York City. In its heyday, known as a gathering place for avant garde writers and artists, it was located at 24 University Place, ne ...

on University Place. Describing life in her fourth floor Greenwich Village walk-up, Ehrenhalt stated: "I painted on the floor, not by choice à la

Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his " drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a hor ...

but for lack of a table. The painter

Al Held Al Held (October 12, 1928 – July 27, 2005) was an American Abstract expressionist painter. He was particularly well known for his large scale Hard-edge paintings. As an artist, multiple stylistic changes occurred throughout his career, howe ...

and sculptor Ronnie Bladen worked at the Door Store and, upon hearing of my predicament, carried a wooden door up four flights of stairs and plopped it on top of the bathtub. From then on, I could work at a more comfortable height."

1950s Paris

Ehrenhalt traveled to Paris for the first time in the early 1950s, one of many moves between Paris, Philadelphia, and New York. (She has also lived in Los Angeles, Rome, and Pietrasanta, Italy). She lived and worked in France and Italy for over 30 years. "I have lived many years in Italy and France and was privileged to know, and sometimes exhibit with many writers and artists who have greatly contributed to modern art, i.e. Giacometti,

Sonia Delaunay Sonia Delaunay (13 November 1885 – 5 December 1979) was a French artist, who spent most of her working life in Paris. She was born in Odessa (then part of Russian Empire), and formally trained in Russian Empire and Germany before moving to Fr ...

, who invited me to choose my paint supplies and put it on her tab,

Hundertwasser Friedrich Stowasser (15 December 1928 – 19 February 2000), better known by his pseudonym Friedensreich Regentag Dunkelbunt Hundertwasser (), was an Austrian visual artist and architect who also worked in the field of environmental protection ...

, who painted 3 portraits of me,

Yves Klein Yves Klein (; 28 April 1928 – 6 June 1962) was a French artist and an important figure in post-war European art. He was a leading member of the French artistic movement of Nouveau réalisme founded in 1960 by art critic Pierre Restany. Klein w ...

Alberto Burri Alberto Burri (12 March 191513 February 1995; ) was an Italian visual artist, painter, sculptor, and physician based in Città di Castello. He is associated with the matterism of the European informal art movement and described his style as ...

, who asked me to translate between him and Martha Jackson for his first show in New York, Joan Mitchell, Sam Francis,

Carlo Levi Carlo Levi () (29 November 1902 – 4 January 1975) was an Italian painter, writer, activist, communist, and doctor. He is best known for his book '' Cristo si è fermato a Eboli'' (''Christ Stopped at Eboli''), published in 1945, a memoir of h ...

, an Italian writer who painted a portrait of me, and others". In 1951, she traveled to North Africa with the painter Friedensreich Hundertwasser, and is the subject of three paintings titled
Rosyln 1, 2, 3
" Ehrenhalt described life in 1950s Paris, and the cafe scene at Le Select cafe on Boulevard du Montparnasse, a 'replacement' for New York's

, in an article titled "Cafe Society", published by Vogue Magazine in September 2012: "Le Select did not discriminate in its patrons-wealthy dilettantes, established artists and writers, and perhaps most of all, the penniless emerging artists hoping to brush shoulders with and find inspiration from the few local celebrities. Le Select had its regulars, whose eccentricities were well known to one another. It was common for

Beauford Delaney Beauford Delaney (December 30, 1901 – March 26, 1979) was an American modernist painter. He is remembered for his work with the Harlem Renaissance in the 1930s and 1940s, as well as his later works in abstract expressionism following his move ...

, the American expat artist who painted

James Baldwin James Arthur Baldwin (August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) was an American writer. He garnered acclaim across various media, including essays, novels, plays, and poems. His first novel, '' Go Tell It on the Mountain'', was published in 1953; de ...

's portrait, to make himself completely at home at a table not his own, reaching for someone else's half-finished drink and swallowing it in one gulp... Another frequent visitor was the dark-eyed, dark-haired Yves Klein, sturdy from his intense study of judo, who would apply paint to nude women and have them lean against his canvases...there I would meet painters

Pegeen Guggenheim Pegeen is the anglicized spelling of Peigín, an Irish given name meaning "little Peig" or "little Margaret", and may refer to: People * Brigit Pegeen Kelly (1951–2016), American poet * Pegeen Fitzgerald (1904–1989) American radio persona ...

and

Ralph Rumney Ralph Rumney (5 June 1934 – 6 March 2002) was an English artist, born in Newcastle Upon Tyne. In 1957 lifelong conscientious objector Rumney - he evaded National Service by going on the run in continental Europe - was one of the co-founders o ...

before dinner at Wadja around the corner or a gathering at Michel Mendes France's apartment."

Later years

Ehrenhalt left Paris in 2008 and moved back to New York City. Later exhibitions and shows include: "Amaranth Ehrenhalt: Au Rythme des Saisons" (2007) at the Maison des Arts de Bagneux, France, "Amaranth Ehrenhalt" (2010), at the Maximillian Gallery in Hollywood, California, "Amaranth Ehrenhalt: A Hidden Treasure" (2012), at the Anita Shapolsky Gallery and Art Foundation, New York City, "Shifting Ecologies" (2014) curated by Marianne Van Lent at The Painting Center, New York City, and "Colorimetry" (2014) at Galerie102 in Ojai, California. Ehrenhalt died on March 16, 2021, in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

. She was 93, and had been diagnosed with

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

prior to her death.

Work

Ehrenhalt's career spanned more than sixty years. Her works have been included in numerous solo exhibitions and group shows. Her work and contribution to American Abstract Expressionism is profiled in ''American Abstract and Figurative Expressionism'', published in 2009 by The New York School Press. Her influences include: Giotto and Cimabue, DaVinci,

El Greco Domḗnikos Theotokópoulos ( el, Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος ; 1 October 1541 7 April 1614), most widely known as El Greco ("The Greek"), was a Greek painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. "El G ...

, Cezanne, Renoir,

Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known prima ...

Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

, Kandinsky, Gorky, de Kooning, and

. Ehrenhalt has shown in group exhibitions alongside her contemporaries: Joan Mitchell, Sam Francis,

, Shirley Jaffe, and others. Her work is in collections around the world—from the Time, Inc. building in Chicago, to the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC, to the National Foundation of Contemporary Art in Paris, France. In 1962, Pulitzer prize winning poet

John Ashbery John Lawrence Ashbery (July 28, 1927 – September 3, 2017) was an American poet and art critic. Ashbery is considered the most influential American poet of his time. Oxford University literary critic John Bayley wrote that Ashbery "sounded, in ...

published a review of Ehrenhalt's work in the ''International Herald Tribune'' (Paris, France, 3 October 1962): "A key figure among these 31 artists from 14 different countries might be the American Ehrenhalt, who shows a large canvas with the inviting title, ''Jump In and Move Around''. It is both an excellent example of New York School abstraction (lush colors, fluent brushwork, bustling composition) and an attempt at a new possibly eerie form of figuration. The large flat areas juxtaposed with smaller, detailed ones seem always on the point of resolving themselves into a landscape or a portrait". Her work expands beyond the canvas to include drawings, prints, watercolors, tapestries, mosaics, murals, sculptures, poetry, prose and more. Gallerist Anita Shapolsky wrote: "She is the most multi-talented woman artist that I have ever encountered, producing paintings, sculpture, mosaics, ceramics, watercolors, tapestries, scarves, prints, poetry and writing. Her counterpart would be Picasso, in terms of the amount of creative output and variety." In 2023 her work was included in the exhibition '' Action, Gesture, Paint: Women Artists and Global Abstraction 1940-1970'' at the

Whitechapel Gallery The Whitechapel Gallery is a public art gallery in Whitechapel on the north side of Whitechapel High Street, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The original building, designed by Charles Harrison Townsend, opened in 1901 as one of the fir ...

in London.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ehrenhalt, Amaranth 20th-century American painters 1928 births 2021 deaths Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in New York (state) 21st-century American painters Painters from Newark, New Jersey Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts alumni University of Pennsylvania alumni 20th-century American women artists 21st-century American women artists American women painters