37 Facts About Hedda Sterne

Hedda Sterne was a Romanian-born American artist who was an active member of the New York School of painters.

Hedda Sterne's work is often associated with Abstract Expressionism and Surrealism.

Hedda Sterne was the only woman to appear in the famous photograph of abstract expressionist artists dubbed "The Irascibles", although the group included other women.

Hedda Sterne was the daughter of Jewish parents Eugenie and Simon Lindenberg, a language teacher.

Hedda Sterne would recall the importance of German philosophy texts and art history books in her development as an artist.

Hedda 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".

Hedda Sterne was particularly drawn to the Surrealist practice of automatism and by the late 1930s had developed her own unique method of constructing automatic collages.

However, Hedda Sterne did not accompany her husband in the spring of 1940 when Fritz Stern left for New York.

Hedda Sterne arrived in New York in late October 1941, where she was reunited with her estranged husband.

In late 1941, Hedda Sterne established a studio and apartment on East 50th Street, nearby Peggy Guggenheim's home on Beekman Place.

Around this time Hedda Sterne met and became close friends with the author Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

In 1942, Hedda 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.

In February 1943, Hedda Sterne met fellow artist and Romanian refugee Saul Steinberg, whom she would marry on October 11,1944, after her divorce from Stafford was finalized.

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.

In 1950, Hedda 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 1963, Hedda Sterne was granted a Fulbright Fellowship in painting, and spent more than a year working in Venice.

Hedda Sterne would express aversion to the idea of creating a "career" as an artist, preferring instead to follow her own path of expression and discovery.

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.

Hedda Sterne was a prolific artist who maintained a daily practice of art-making throughout much of her career.

Hedda Sterne continued to create new work in her 80s and 90s, even while affected by macular degeneration.

Between 2004 and 2008, Hedda Sterne suffered two strokes, which progressively affected her vision and movement.

Hedda Sterne died on April 8,2011, at the age of 100.

Hedda Sterne 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.

In 1944, Hedda Sterne agreed to marry Steinberg on his return and traveled to Reno, Nevada, to secure a divorce from her first husband.

Life Magazine featured a profile of the couple in their August 27,1951 issue, titled "Steinberg and Hedda Sterne: Romanian-Born Cartoonist and Artist-Wife Ambush the World with Pen and Paintbrush".

Hedda Sterne was awarded second prize at the Art Institute of Chicago Annual in 1957.

Hedda Sterne never liked to define her art or herself into any group socially or artistically.

Hedda Sterne has maintained a stubborn independence from styles and trends, including Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism.

Hedda Sterne's explorations have produced a small universe of evocative images.

Hedda 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.

Hedda Sterne's independence reflected an immense artistic and personal integrity.

The astonishing variety of Hedda 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.

Hedda Sterne's art is, indeed, a manifesto in favor of the untamable forces of the mind and the continually changing flux of life.

Hedda Sterne's first show at the gallery, it features paintings and monotype prints that were made at the same moment: the decade after Ms.

Hedda Sterne arrived in New York from Bucharest, Romania, having barely escaped the Nazis.

Hedda Sterne finally coming out from behind the famous photograph and being seriously considered as a painter.