Helaine Blumenfeld
Encyclopedia
Helaine Blumenfeld OBE (born, New York 1942) is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Sculptor working in Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
.
Biography
Helaine Blumenfeld was educated at the University of Michigan and Columbia University, New York, where after a year at Oxford University, she completed a PhD in Philosophy in 1964. She went to study sculpture with Ossip ZadkineOssip Zadkine
Ossip Zadkine was a Belarusian-born artist who lived in France. He is primarily known as a sculptor, but also produced paintings and lithographs.-Early years and career:...
in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. In 1966, Blumenfeld showed a group of polished bronzes at the Palais Pálffy (Josefsplatz) in Vienna. In 1973, Blumenfeld exhibited at Kettle's Yard
Kettle's Yard
Kettle's Yard is an art gallery and house in Cambridge, England.- History and overview :Kettle's Yard was originally the Cambridge home of Jim Ede and his wife Helen. Moving to Cambridge in 1956, they converted four small cottages into one idiosyncratic house and a place to display Ede's collection...
in Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. In 1985, the Alex Rosenberg Gallery in New York showed her sculpture in dialogue with Henry Moore and in 1992, the Galerie am Lindenplatz in Lichtenstein exhibited her with Alexander Archipenko and Constantin Brancusi. In 2008, the Royal British Society of Sculptors held an exhibition in her honour. In 2011 she was awarded an honorary OBE by Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II for services to the arts. Jeremy Hunt, Britain's Minister for Culture, Media and Sports, presented the award at the House of Commons.
Blumenfeld has created over 65 large scale sculptures in bronze, granite, marble and steel in Europe and the United States for private and public clients, including the British Petroleum headquarters in London, the Lincoln Center in New York and the Cass Sculpture Foundation at Goodwood. In Cambridge, her sculpture can be viewed on the corner of Brookland’s Avenue and Hills Road (Chauvinist, 1990), at Vision Park, Histon (Shadow Figures, 1991), and at Clare Hall (Flame, 2004) and Newnham College (Esprit, 2004).
Her sculptures feature in many important public and private collections around the world, including those of the Courtauld, Tate, the Smithsonian and Clare Hall, Cambridge. In 2005, a seven-foot, £200,000 Blumenfeld bronze made for a show to commemorate the Holocaust was stolen from a warehouse in south London. It turned up in 2007 just five miles away, chained to a fire escape behind a block of flats.
Helaine Blumenfeld lives and works in Cambridge and Pietrasanta in Tuscany
Career
Helaine Blumenfeld moved to England in 1969 and divides her time between studios in Cambridge and PietrasantaPietrasanta
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 km north of Pisa...
Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
where she has a studio. In 2011 the city of Pietrasanta accorded Blumenfeld the honour of a solo exhibition on the city's main square
She has lectured to the Cambridge Visual Arts Society, the Institute of Contemporary Arts, the Pietrasanta symposium and the British psychoanalytic society. She is also actively involved in organising and promoting exhibitions of sculpture in the environment and introduced the successful sculpture in the garden show at Leicester University in 2003. In 2003, Blumenfeld received and honorary doctor of letters from Leicester university. In 2004, Blumenfeld was elected vice president of the Royal British Society of Sculptors.
Blumenfeld has created over fifty large-scale commissions for the public and private sector alike. These include prestigious sites such as the U.S Federal Government Plaza, Wisconsin and high profile companies such as British Petroleum and the Royal Caribbean Cruise Line. In 2006, Helaine became the first ever woman to win the international sculpture prize Premio Pietrasanta nel Mondo and was given an exhibition in honour of that achievement.
Blumenfeld's new work is characterized by the way she takes solid, complex units and adds thinner, shell-like elements, which significantly change the mass of each piece: sculptures that had previously seemed earthbound suddenly acquire a sense of flight. The outer surfaces of these pieces reflect an inner spirituality and, while transparency is not easily achieved in sculpture, Blumenfeld's technical virtuosity means that she consistently brings light into her work as a fourth dimension. (2010) (...http://www.sculpture.org.uk/HelaineBlumenfeld)
A member of the Visual Arts Panel of the Arts Council of Great Britain between 1981 and 1988, Blumenfeld was elected a member of the Royal British Society of Sculptors
Royal British Society of Sculptors
The Royal British Society of Sculptors is a registered charity whose aims are to promote and support sculpture. It has a worldwide membership....
in 1993 and has served the society as Vice-President from 2004 to 2009. She is the first woman to be awarded the ‘International Sculpture Prize: Pietrasanta and Versilia in the World’ - an honour previously awarded to Marc Quinn
Marc Quinn
Marc Quinn is a British artist and part of the group known as Britartists or YBAs . He is known for Alison Lapper Pregnant , Self , and Garden .He is one of the Young British...
and Fernando Botero
Fernando Botero
Fernando Botero Angulo is a Colombian figurative artist. His works feature a figurative style, called by some "Boterismo", which gives them an unmistakable identity...
. Blumenfeld has exhibited internationally and 65 of her large bronze and granite sculptures are in public collections. In 2009 The Financial Times (FT) described Helaine Blumenfeld's work as "the Henry Moores of the Future" Blumenfeld is a life member of Clare Hall, Cambridge and holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Leicester
University of Leicester
The University of Leicester is a research-led university based in Leicester, England. The main campus is a mile south of the city centre, adjacent to Victoria Park and Wyggeston and Queen Elizabeth I College....
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External Links
- Biography & Links at artnet.com
- How we met: Helaine Blumenfeld & Michael G Wilson
- http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article2015876.ece
- Relative Values: Helaine Blumenfeld and her son Remy