Sigmund Abeles
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Sigmund Abeles (born 1934) is an American
figurative art Figurative art, sometimes written as figurativism, describes artwork (particularly paintings and sculptures) that is clearly derived from real object sources and so is, by definition, representational. The term is often in contrast to abstract a ...
ist and art educator. His work embodies the "expressive and psychological aspects of the human figure; an art focused on the life cycle." He taught art for 27 years at various institutions including
Swain School of Design The Swain School of Design (1881–1988) was an independent tuition-free non-profit school of higher learning in New Bedford, Massachusetts. It first defined its mission as a "school of design" for the "application of art to the industries" in 19 ...
,
Wellesley College Wellesley College is a Private university, private Women's colleges in the United States, historically women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1870 by Henr ...
,
Boston University Boston University (BU) is a Private university, private research university in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. BU was founded in 1839 by a group of Boston Methodism, Methodists with its original campus in Newbury (town), Vermont, Newbur ...
, the National Academy, and the
Art Students League of New York The Art Students League of New York is an art school in the American Fine Arts Society in Manhattan, New York City. The Arts Students League is known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists. Although artists may study f ...
. Currently Professor Emeritus at the
University of New Hampshire The University of New Hampshire (UNH) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university with its main campus in Durham, New Hampshire, United States. It was founded and incorporated in 1866 as a land grant coll ...
, Abeles works full-time in his NYC and upstate NY studios. He is the recipient of numerous grants and awards for printmaking, drawing, painting, and sculpture, including Pastel Society of America Hall of Fame honoree in 2004 and most recently the Artists' Fellowship 2017 Benjamin West Clinedinst Medal. His work can be found in many public institutions including the
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the list of largest art museums, 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 painting ...
,
Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States. The museum is based in the Art Institute of Chicago Building in Chicago's Grant Park (Chicago), Grant Park. Its collection, stewa ...
,
Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...
,
Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) is an List of art museums#North America, 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 ...
, and the
Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is a Modern art, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighbor ...
. Abeles was one of three artists featured in
Manfred Kirchheimer Manfred Alexander Kirchheimer (March 2, 1931 – July 16, 2024) was an American documentary film maker and professor of film at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He previously taught at NYIT. He was born in Saarbrücken, Germany, and h ...
's 2012 feature-length independent film '' Art Is... The Permanent Revolution'', on the history of the art of protest in prints.


Early life and education

Born in
Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...
, Abeles grew up in
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina Myrtle Beach is a resort city on the East Coast of the United States in Horry County, South Carolina. It is located in the center of a long and continuous stretch of beach known as the "Grand Strand” in the northeastern part of the state. Its ...
. The only child of Samuel and Henrietta Abeles, he was named after his grandfather, a renowned Orthodox rabbi who immigrated to the United States from Hungary in 1901. His father, a Hungarian Jew, was a decorated World War I veteran who used his pension to open up a retail business in
Sheepshead Bay Sheepshead, Sheephead, or Sheep's Head, may refer to: Fish * '' Archosargus probatocephalus'', a medium-sized saltwater fish of the Atlantic Ocean * Freshwater drum, ''Aplodinotus grunniens'', a medium-sized freshwater fish of North and Central ...
. His mother was of Polish-Jewish descent and worked as a librarian before her marriage. After his parents divorced early on in his life, he moved to Myrtle Beach with his mother where she started a new life by opening up a rooming house called Paul's Guest House on US Highway 17. Spending a great deal of time alone in the rooming house, Sigmund grew a fascination for how many types of people occupy the same domain which had a huge impact and direction on his artwork took. Sigmund Abeles received no formal art training in the public schools at Myrtle Beach. Searching for inspiration, Abeles found
Brookgreen Gardens Brookgreen Gardens is a sculpture garden and wildlife preserve, located just south of Murrells Inlet, in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The property includes several themed gardens featuring American figurative sculptures, the Lowcountry Zo ...
, an outdoor sculpture park, which provided him with a multitude of beautiful bronze and marble figures to sketch; years later, as an established artist, he had his life-sized bronze sculpture, " Kaethe, age 9" (modeled in 1968 and later cast in Bronze in 2006), placed in Brookgreen's permanent collection. Abeles was invited later to hold a major solo exhibition there in 2015 called "Carolina Roots".Shortly after graduating, Abeles was drafted into the army in 1957. He was posted to Heidelberg, Germany where he worked as a technical illustrator in a cartography workshop at the US Headquarters Army where he made charts and maps for top secret nuclear war plans. There he rented a house off base in nearby Neckargemünd that belonged to a sculptor. It was here he developed a renewed interest in creating sculptures. After serving two years in the army, he was discharged in Europe and spent the next year touring Italy, Greece and Israel with his then first wife, Gina Godwin. They raised two children, David Paul and Shoshanna Lynn upon coming back to the US. During his high school years, Sigmund was mentored by Truman Moore Sr., a wood sculptor, who pointed him towards the Boston artist
Gerard Francis Tempest Gerard Francis Tempest (February 23, 1918 – July 26, 2009) was a painter, sculptor, architect and veteran of World War II. Tempest was the father of Abstract Spiritualism and the protégé of Giorgio de Chirico, the forerunner of Surrealism. B ...
whom he later apprenticed with. Abeles attended the University of South Carolina, initially for pre-medical studies to appease his mother but he later switched to art studies. There he met
Jasper Johns Jasper Johns (born May 15, 1930) is an American painter, sculptor, draftsman, and printmaker. Considered a central figure in the development of American postwar art, he has been variously associated with abstract expressionism, Neo-Dada, and ...
, an upper classman and became long term acquaintances. They shared the same art professors, Edmund Yaghijian and
Catharine Rembert Catharine Phillips Rembert (April 22, 1905 – October 26, 1990) was an artist, designer and art educator best known as an important teacher and mentor of Jasper Johns, among others. Early life and education Catharine Phillips Rembert was born in ...
. In 1952, Abeles attended
Pratt Institute Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York. It has an additional campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The institute was founded in 18 ...
in Brooklyn for only one semester because his mother would only allow him to study commercial art. In the summer of 1954, determined to pursue his love for fine arts and figurative study, he attended the
Art Students League of New York The Art Students League of New York is an art school in the American Fine Arts Society in Manhattan, New York City. The Arts Students League is known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists. Although artists may study f ...
where he was taught by Reginald Marsh,
Morris Kantor Morris Kantor () (1896–1974) was a Russian-born American painter based in the New York City area. Life Born in Minsk on April 15, 1896, Kantor was brought to the United States in 1906 at age 10, in order to join his father who had previously ...
and
Harry Sternberg Harry Sternberg (1904–2001), was an American Painting, painter, printmaking, printmaker and educator. He taught at the Art Students League of New York, from 1933 to c. 1966. Biography Childhood, family life, and education Sternberg's parents h ...
. In 1955, he received a scholarship to the
Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture is an artists residency located in Madison, Maine, just outside of Skowhegan. Every year, the program accepts online applications from emerging artists from November through January, and selects 65 ...
in Maine. He worked under
Edwin Dickinson Edwin Walter Dickinson (October 11, 1891 – December 2, 1978) was an American painter and draftsman best known for psychologically charged self-portraits, quickly painted landscapes, which he called ''premier coups'', and large, hauntingly enigma ...
and Isabel Bishop. There he also made lifelong friendships with fellow students Sidney Hurwitz, Philip Grausman, Jerome Witkin and
Ashley Bryan Ashley Frederick Bryan (July 13, 1923February 4, 2022) was an American writer and illustrator of children's books. Most of his subjects are from the African-American experience. He was a U.S. nominee for the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2 ...
. In 1957, he received another scholarship to study at
Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
where he received his MFA in Painting in just one year. Shortly after graduating, Abeles was drafted into the army in 1957. He was posted to Heidelberg, Germany where he worked as a technical illustrator in a cartography workshop at the US Headquarters Army where he made charts and maps for top secret nuclear war plans. There he rented a house off base in nearby Neckargemünd that belonged to a sculptor. It was here he developed a renewed interest in creating sculptures. After serving two years in the army, he was discharged in Europe and spent the next year touring Italy, Greece and Israel with his then first wife, Gina Godwin. They raised two children, David Paul and Shoshanna Lynn upon coming back to the US. In 1960, Abeles returned to Columbia, SC and found himself without a job. He briefly taught adults at a local community art center until a position opened up at the Swain School of Design in New Bedford, MA recommended to him. It was his first full time teaching job, which was to last three years. The year 1965 was Abeles' strongest New York art world year as a recognized artist there. He was included in that year’s Whitney Annual which was devoted to his prints and sculpture. Then the Museum of Modern Art bought his etching “ Self Portrait with Cats”. That was the only time both his estranged parents attended an art event he was included in. That same year, the National Institute of Arts and Letters awarded Abeles a grant and honor. His early anti war work in drypoint and etching was introduced there by
Lewis Mumford Lewis Mumford (October 19, 1895 – January 26, 1990) was an American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic. Particularly noted for his study of cities and urban architecture, he had a broad career as a ...
. From 1964 to 1969, he was resident artist at Wellesley College which, despite not offering a studio art major at the time, had some of the brightest students the artist recalls having taught. In 1967, Abeles was awarded a sabbatical grant from teaching at Wellesley College by the newly founded National Council of Arts and Humanities which is now called the
National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the feder ...
. He spent that year making large anti Vietnam war color prints as well as a body of terra cotta sculptures from the figure. In his first 20 years as an artist, Abeles mostly worked in black and white etchings, drawings and sculpture. Color was reintroduced into his works when he discovered pastel which was an extension of his drawings beginning in 1979.


Publications

* Ronald L. Ruble, ''The Print Renaissance in America—A Revolution'' (2015) * Frye Art Museum, ''The Perception of Appearance. A Decade of Contemporary American Figure Drawing'' (2002) * Smithsonian Institution, National Portrait Gallery, ''American Portrait Drawings'' (1980) * Matthew Baigell, ''Jewish Art in America—An Introduction'' (2007). Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc. * James A. Haught, ''The Art of Love Making, An Illustrated Tribute'' (1992). Prometheus Books. * David Acton, ''60 Years of North American Prints 1947–2007'' (2007). The Boston Printmakers. * Dan Gheno, ''Figure Drawing Master Class'' (2015). Dan Gheno published by North Light Books. * ''Face to Face: Artists' Self Portraits from the Collection of Jackye and Curtis Finch, Jr.'' Catalog 2013, Arkansas Arts Center * ''Yellow Silk: Erotic Arts and Letters'', ed. Lily Pond and Richard Russo (1991). Harmony Books. * ''Mirrors & Masks: Reflections and Constructions of the Self'' (2017).
Bryn Mawr College Bryn Mawr College ( ; Welsh language, Welsh: ) is a Private college, private Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded as a ...
* Jack A. Morris, Jr (text)/Robert Smeltzer (photography) "Contemporary Artists of South Carolina" (1970)


Solo exhibitions

* "Century Master: Sigmund Abeles" The Century Association, NYC, 2019. Solo retrospective exhibition comprising 90 of Sigmund Abeles works. * ''Carolina Roots: Sigmund Abeles'',
Brookgreen Gardens Brookgreen Gardens is a sculpture garden and wildlife preserve, located just south of Murrells Inlet, in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The property includes several themed gardens featuring American figurative sculptures, the Lowcountry Zo ...
, Murrells Inlet, SC, 2015 * ''From Whence I've Come'', Franklin G. Burroughs-Simeon B. Chapin Art Museum,
Myrtle Beach, SC Myrtle Beach is a resort city on the East Coast of the United States in Horry County, South Carolina. It is located in the center of a long and continuous stretch of beach known as the " Grand Strand” in the northeastern part of the state. It ...
, 2007 * ''Sigmund Abeles: Things to Come'', Burroughs/Chapin Art Museum, Myrtle Beach, SC, 1999 * ''ABELES, Recent Pastels, Drawings & Print Survey'', Thomas Williams Fine Arts, London, UK, catalog, 2000 * ''Print Retrospective'',
Bates College Museum of Art The Bates College Museum of Art is an art museum located on the campus of, and maintained by, Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. The museum's collection consists of works of art that showcase Maine as well as art from around the world, with a foc ...
,
Lewiston, ME Lewiston (; ) is the List of municipalities in Maine, second most populous city in the U.S. state of Maine, with the city's population at 37,121 as of the 2020 United States census. The city lies halfway between Augusta, Maine, Augusta, the sta ...
, catalog w/complete print listing, 1999 * ''The Observant Hand, 40 Years of Drawing by Sigmund Abeles'', Pollock Gallery,
Southern Methodist University Southern Methodist University (SMU) is a Private university, private research university in Dallas, Texas, United States, with a satellite campus in Taos County, New Mexico. SMU was founded on April 17, 1911, by the Methodist Episcopal Church, ...
,
Dallas Dallas () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of Texas metropolitan areas, most populous metropolitan area in Texas and the Metropolitan statistical area, fourth-most ...
, TX, 1998 * ''A 30-Year Retrospective of Drawings & Prints from the Collection of the
Boston Public Library The Boston Public Library is a municipal public library system in Boston, Massachusetts, founded in 1848. The Boston Public Library is also Massachusetts' Library for the Commonwealth (formerly ''library of last recourse''), meaning all adult re ...
'', 1993 * ''Sigmund Abeles'', The Old Print Shop, New York City, 2008


References


External links


Sigmund AbelesArt Students LeagueAsheville Art MuseumJohnson CollectionNational Academy
{{DEFAULTSORT:Abeles, Sigmund Figurative art American printmakers Painters from New York City People from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina University of New Hampshire faculty Art Students League of New York faculty National Academy of Design faculty American pastel artists 20th-century American painters 1934 births Living people 21st-century American painters