Beatrice Mandelman, known as Bea, was an American abstract artist associated with the group known as the Taos Moderns.
19 Facts About Beatrice Mandelman
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Beatrice Mandelman was born in Newark, New Jersey to Anna Lisker Mandelman and Louis Mandelman, Jewish immigrants who imbued their children with their social justice values and love of the arts.
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New Mexico landscape and culture had a profound influence on Beatrice Mandelman's style, influencing it towards a brighter palette, more geometric forms, flatter surfaces, and more crisply defined forms.
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Beatrice Mandelman's work is included in many major public collections, including large holdings at the University of New Mexico Art Museum and Harwood Museum of Art.
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Beatrice Mandelman was born on December 31,1912, in Newark, New Jersey, to Jewish immigrant parents who imbued their children with progressive social values and love of the arts.
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Beatrice Mandelman met graphic designer and illustrator Robert Jonas, who introduced her to Willem de Kooning, Arshile Gorky, and other New York vanguard artists.
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Between 1935 and 1942, Beatrice Mandelman was employed the Works Progress Administration's Federal Arts Project, first as a muralist and later as a printmaker.
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Beatrice Mandelman became one of the original members of the Silk Screen Unit, who, under the leadership of Anthony Velonis, transformed what had been primarily a commercial medium into an artistic one.
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Beatrice Mandelman worked for the WPA until 1942, when it was disbanded.
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Beatrice Mandelman took Mandelman and Ribak under her wing and included them in her book "Taos and Its Artists".
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Beatrice Mandelman adapted well to life in the Taos art colony.
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Beatrice Mandelman's work was included in the 1940 MoMA show American Color Prints Under $10.
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Beatrice Mandelman was included in the 1947 and 1951 Dallas Museum of Fine Arts exhibitions of the National Serigraph Society.
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Beatrice Mandelman traveled widely throughout her lifetime, visiting South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa and living for extended periods in Mexico, where she and Ribak would go virtually every year to escape the cold northern New Mexico winters Like many of their contemporaries, including their Santa Fe friend, designer Alexander Girard, they were enamored of folk art and collected it.
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Beatrice Mandelman was included in a 1952 group exhibition "Taos Painting Yesterday and Today" at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center.
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Beatrice Mandelman preferred to work in series, a total of 33 starting in the 1940s until her death in 1998.
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In May, 1998, two months before she died, Beatrice Mandelman was featured in an article in Forbes magazine, which drew international attention and sales.
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Beatrice Mandelman's spirits buoyed by recognition and sales, and propped up by her caregivers as she painted, Mandelman was able to produce thirty-one works comprising the Winter Series.
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Beatrice Mandelman died of cancer on June 24,1998, in her Taos home, at the age of 85.