HEDDA STERNE M A C H I N E S , 1 9 4 7 –1 9 5 1
Mist
HEDDA STERNE MACHINES 1947–1951
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“I have the feeling that I’ve functioned almost like a movie camera, moving through the years from immediate nearness to medium distance to far and remote vistas and then back again.” Hedda Sterne quoted in Katharine Kuh’s introduction to the CDS Gallery exhibition announcement, 1984
Van Doren Waxter is pleased to present the first posthumous one-person exhibition of Hedda Sterne (1911–2011) who lived and worked in a townhouse on East 71st Street, not far from our gallery. Many people may recognize her name and image from the famous photograph known as The Irascibles, taken by Nina Leen in 1950 for Life magazine. The artists in the photograph had signed a letter of protest against the Metropolitan Museum, rejecting their juried selection of artists for a show titled American Painting Today in that same year, for being “hostile to advanced art.” In countless subsequent interviews Sterne openly stated that her work defied categorization as Abstract Expressionism so often applied to her contemporaries in that photograph. With this show we hope to support the image of Sterne as an artist compelled by her surroundings to magnify the moment in which she lived without regard to imagery or style. This first exhibition is comprised of works made relatively soon after Sterne’s arrival in the United States, as she synthesized where she came from in Europe with the newness of postwar America. John Van Doren Dorsey Waxter Hedda Sterne, 1950 3
“I am not here to define anything; but to give life to what I have the urge to give life to. We live by the particular, not by the general.” Modern Artists on Art – Artists’ Roundtable, 1950
MACHINE MOTOR LIGHT BLUE, 1951 Oil on linen, 39 x 31 3 ⁄ 4 inches (99.1 x 80.6 cm) “Hedda Sterne” lower right on reverse, HS 134 4
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YELLOW MACHINE, 19 50 Oil on linen, 24 x 20 inches (61 x 50.8 cm), “Hedda Sterne 1950” lower edge, HS 2500 6
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“When I came to the United States, I was struck that this country was more Surrealistic than anything anybody imagined. Already in ’41, I’d seen in California, buildings in the shape of ice cream cones and oranges that you could walk into. That kind of freedom, that romanticism about the future, was utterly delightful to me. So I became a passive observer, for a while. I started looking at my American kitchen, and I painted my American kitchen. Then I went on the streets, and I did cars. Then I did all the highways and all the machinery. All of those things struck me as tremendously poetical and symbolic.” Interview with Anney Bonney for Bomb Magazine, Spring 1992
MONUMENT, c. 1949-51 Oil on linen, 52 x 30 1 ⁄ 8 inches (132.1 x 76.5 cm), “Hedda Sterne” lower left, HS 2429 8
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“In 1947, I went to the country and I discovered agricultural machines. I had a feeling that machines are unconscious self-portraits of people’s psyches: the grasping, the wanting, the aggression that’s in a machine.” Interview with Joan Simon for Art In America Magazine, February 2007
INSTRUMENT, c. 1949-50 Oil on linen, 24 x 20 inches (61 x 50.8 cm), “Hedda Sterne” lower left; “INSTRUMENT” in pencil on stretcher, HS 185 10
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“Where I grew up was about 60 years behind the United States. So when I traveled to the United States, I didn’t only travel in space, I also traveled in time. It was a tremendous cultural leap.” Interview with Anney Bonney for Bomb Magazine, Spring 1992
UNTITLED, c. 1950 Oil and metallic paint on linen, 28 5 ⁄ 8 x 19 5 ⁄ 8 inches (72.7 x 49.8 cm) “HS” lower left, HS 186 12
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STRUCTURE XXV, 1949 Oil on linen, 24 x 20 inches (61 x 50.8 cm), “Hedda Sterne 1949” upper right; “Structure no XXV, Hedda Sterne, 1949” on reverse, HS 187 14
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“I never think of color as pigment. Color serves in my paintings to indicate distance, nearness or roundness. I use color only as a means to define things, just like the line.” Interview with Anney Bonney for Bomb Magazine, Spring 1992
AIRPORT #1, c. 1947- 49 Oil on linen, 60 x 42 inches (152.4 x 106.7 cm), “Hedda Sterne” lower left, HS 2481 16
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“In our time, artists are inclined to believe that art is like honey, the product of their own subconsciouses, their own minds, and I do not. I see myself as a well-working lens, a perceiver of something that exists independently of me: don’t look at me, look at what I’ve found.” Interview with Phyllis Tuchman for the Archives of American Art’s Mark Rothko and his Times oral history project, December 17, 1981
ANTHROPOGRAPH #19, 1949 Oil on linen, 40 x 30 inches (101.6 x 76.2 cm), “Hedda Sterne 1949” lower right; “Hedda Sterne” lower left on reverse, HS 127 18
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UNTITLED, 1950 Traced monotype, ink and pencil on wove paper, 14 1 ⁄ 2 x 11 5 ⁄ 8 inches (36.8 x 29.5 cm) “HST 50” lower right, HS 1446 20
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UNTITLED, 1949 Traced monotype, ink and pencil on wove paper, 12 x 18 inches (30.5 x 45.7 cm) “HST 49” lower right, HS 1445 22
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“I took it for granted that art is essentially an act of freedom. You react to the world totally freely. I met many artists in New York who believed progress is linear, from figure to abstract. In my work I never followed that idea.” Interview with Joan Simon for Art In America Magazine, February 2007
UNTITLED, 1950 Monotype, ink on wove paper, 12 1 ⁄ 2 x 8 1 ⁄ 4 inches (31.8 x 21 cm) “HST 50” lower right, HS 1425 24
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[VACUUM CLEANER], 1949 Traced monotype, ink and pencil on wove paper, 11 5 ⁄ 8 x 14 3 ⁄ 4 inches (29.5 x 37.5 cm) “HST 49” lower right, HS 1437 27
UNTITLED, 1949 Traced monotype, ink and pencil on wove paper, 12 x 9 inches (30.5 x 22.9 cm) “Hedda Sterne 1949” lower left, HS 1435 28
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“For the sublime and the beautiful and the interesting, you don’t have to look far away. You have to know how to see.” Interview with Joan Simon for Art In America Magazine, February 2007
UNTITLED, 1949 Traced monotype, ink and pencil on wove paper, 17 1 ⁄ 4 x 12 3 ⁄ 4 inches (43.8 x 31.4 cm) “Hedda Sterne 1949” lower right, HS 1448 30
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PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art, Saint Joseph, MO
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, RI
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY
Sheldon Museum of Art, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE
Art Institute of Chicago, IL Baltimore Museum of Art, MD
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA
Tate Modern, London, United Kingdom
Chazen Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI
Toledo Museum of Art, OH
Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY
University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, MI
Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA
Guild Hall Museum, East Hampton, NY
Weatherspoon Art Museum, The University of North Carolina, Greensboro, NC
Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, MA
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Worcester Art Museum, MA
Illinois State Museum, Springfield, IL Indianapolis Museum of Art, IN Krannert Art Museum and Kinkead Pavilion, University of Illinois, Champaign, IL Library of Congress, Washington, DC Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA The Menil Collection, Houston, TX Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY Minnesota Museum of American Art, Saint Paul, MN Montclair Art Museum, NJ Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, CA Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, State University of New York, Purchase, NY New Britain Museum of American Art, CT Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, CA Palmer Museum of Art, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, Florida International University, Miami, FL Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA Queens Museum, Flushing Meadow, NY Racine Art Museum, WI
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SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2016 Hedda Sterne: Machines, 1947-1951, Van Doren Waxter, New York
1975 Hedda Sterne, Betty Parsons Gallery, New York
1954 Hedda Sterne: Paintings, Betty Parsons Gallery, New York
2006 Uninterrupted Flux: Hedda Sterne; A Retrospective, Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, Champaign, IL
Hedda Sterne - Portraits, Lee Ault & Company, New York
1953 Hedda Sterne, Galleria dell’ Obelisco, Rome, Italy
2004 Hedda Sterne: Ghosts, CDS Gallery, New York 2000 Hedda Sterne: A Collection of Wordless Thoughts, CDS Gallery, New York 1998 Hedda Sterne, Dessins (1939 - 1998), Bibliothèque Municipale, Ville de Caen, France Hedda Sterne: Over the Years; Paintings and Drawings from the 1960s through the 1990s, CDS Gallery, New York 1995 Hedda Sterne, CDS Gallery, New York 1993 Hedda Sterne, Philippe Briet Gallery, New York 1990 Hedda Sterne, CDS Gallery, New York 1987 Hedda Sterne, CDS Gallery, New York 1985 Hedda Sterne: Forty Years, Queens Museum, New York 1984 Hedda Sterne Reflections, CDS Gallery, New York 1982 Hedda Sterne: A Painting Life, CDS Gallery, New York 1977 Hedda Sterne Retrospective, Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ
1974 Hedda Sterne, Betty Parsons Gallery, New York 1972 Hedda Sterne, Betty Parsons Gallery, New York 1970 Hedda Sterne Shows Everyone, Betty Parsons Gallery, New York 1968 Hedda Sterne: Metaphors and Metamorphoses; Paintings, Betty Parsons Gallery, New York Hedda Sterne: Drawings and Select Prints, Benson Gallery, Bridgehampton, NY 1966 Hedda Sterne, Portraits: 1941-1965, Betty Parsons Gallery, New York 1963 Hedda Sterne, Betty Parsons Gallery, New York 1961 Hedda Sterne, Galleria dell’ Obelisco, Rome, Italy Hedda Sterne: Paintings, Betty Parsons Gallery, New York 1958 Hedda Sterne: Paintings, Betty Parsons Gallery, New York 1957 Hedda Sterne, Betty Parsons Gallery, New York 1956 Paintings by Hedda Sterne, Vassar College Art Gallery, Poughkeepsie, NY Hedda Sterne, Saidenberg Gallery, New York
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1952 Paintings by Hedda Sterne, Gump’s Gallery, San Francisco, CA Hedda Sterne, Museu de Arte de São Paulo, Brazil 1950 Hedda Sterne: Paintings, Betty Parsons Gallery, New York (February 13-March 4; December 18-January 5) 1948 Hedda Sterne: Paintings, Betty Parsons Gallery, New York 1947 Hedda Sterne: Paintings, Betty Parsons Gallery, New York 1946 Hedda Sterne, Mortimer Brandt Gallery, New York 1945 Hedda Sterne, Mortimer Brandt Gallery, New York 1943 Hedda Sterne, Wakefield Gallery, New York
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2015 America is Hard to See, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York 2012 Pulling at polarities, Hollis Taggart Galleries, New York 2001 Abstrakter Expressionismus in Amerika: Lee Krasner, Hedda Sterne, Elaine de Kooning, Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler, Pfalzgalerie Kaiserslautern, Germany 1982 Poets and Artists, Guild Hall Museum, East Hampton, NY 1979 Women Artists of Eastern Long Island, Guild Hall Museum, East Hampton, NY Paintings by Hedda Sterne, Walter Murch, Alexander Liberman, Roswell Museum and Art Center, Roswell, NM 1978 From the Guild Hall Art Collection: Presented in Memory of Harold Rosenberg 1906–1978, Guild Hall Museum, East Hampton, NY 1971 Artists of the Region: Hedda Sterne and Ibram Lassaw, Guild Hall Museum, East Hampton, NY American Painting and Sculpture, 1948– 1969, Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, Champaign, IL 1970 American Drawings of the Sixties: A Selection, New School Art Center, New York 1968 Betty Parsons Private Collection, Finch College Museum of Art, New York 1967 Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Four American Painters: George, Rankine, Reichek, Sterne, Axiom Gallery, London, U.K. 1966 Painting and Sculpture Today, Heron Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN 1965 Women Artists of America, Newark Museum, NJ Contemporary American Painting and Sculpture, Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, Champaign, IL Portraits from the American Art World, New School Art Center, New York 1964 Pittsburgh International Exhibition of Contemporary Painting and Sculpture, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, PA 159th Annual Exhibition of American Painting and Sculpture, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA 1963 Two Modern Collectors: Susan Morse Hilles, Richard Brown Baker, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT The 28th Biennial Exhibition, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Pittsburgh, PA 1962 Four American Painters: Sterne, Feeley, Kawabata, Reichek, Molton Gallery, London, U.K. 65th American Exhibition: Some Directions in Contemporary Painting and Sculpture, Art Institute of Chicago, IL 1961 The Lambert Collection: Three Hundred Pictures Purchased in a Half Century, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA Pittsburgh International Exhibition of Contemporary Painting and Sculpture, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, PA
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Contemporary American Painting and Sculpture, Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, Champaign, IL 64th American Exhibition: Paintings, Sculpture, Art Institute of Chicago, IL 1960 The 155th Annual Exhibition of American Painting and Sculpture, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA 1959 Annual Exhibition — Contemporary American Painting, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York The 26th Biennial Exhibition, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. 1958 Paintings for Unlimited Space, Betty Parsons Gallery, New York Pittsburgh Bicentennial International Exhibition of Contemporary Painting and Sculpture, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, PA 22 New York Painters, Landau Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 1957 Annual Exhibition: Sculpture, Paintings, Watercolors, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York 62nd Exhibition of American Painting and Sculpture, Art Institute of Chicago, IL 1956 American Artists Paint the City, Venice Biennale, Italy 1955 Ten Years, Betty Parsons Gallery, New York Fourth Annual Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture, Stable Gallery, New York 50 Ans d’art aux etats-unis: Collections du Museum of Modern Art de New York, Musee National d’Art Moderne, Paris, France Janicki-Sterne-Glasco, Arts Club of Chicago, IL
1954 61st American Exhibition: Paintings and Sculpture, Art Institute of Chicago, IL Third Annual Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture, Stable Gallery, New York 1952 Painter’s Choice, Worcester Art Museum, MA 1951 Contemporary Painting in the United States, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA Contemporary Art in the United States, Worcester Art Museum, MA 1950 Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York Young Painters in U.S. and France, Sidney Janis Gallery, New York Young American Artists: Life Magazine’s Fifty Most Promising Painters in the United States, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Contemporary American Painting, College of Fine and Applied Arts, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL The 145th Annual Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA 1949 Painting in the United States, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, PA The 21st Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary American Oil Paintings, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
XXIV Biennale di Venezia: La Collezione Peggy Guggenheim, Palazzo Centrale, Venice 1947 58th Exhibition of American Painting and Sculpture, Art Institute of Chicago, IL 1945 Portraits of Today by Painters of Today, Mortimer Brandt Gallery, New York 1944 Spring Salon for Young Artists, Art of This Century, New York 1943 Spring Salon for Young Artists, Art of This Century, New York Exhibition of Collage, Art of This Century, New York 31 Women, Art of This Century, New York 1942 First Papers of Surrealism, curated by André Breton and Marcel Duchamp, Whitelaw Reid Mansion, New York 1939 50th Exposition du Salon des Independants, Paris, France 1938 Exhibition of Collages, Papiers-Colles and Photo-Montages, Guggenheim Jeune, London, U.K. 11th Exposition du Salon des Surindependants, Paris, France
The 144th Annual Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA La Collezione Guggenheim, Palazzo Strozzi, Florence; Palazzo Reale, Milan 1948 The 143rd Annual Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
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Published on the occasion of the exhibition Hedda Sterne: Machines, 1947-1951 March 10-April 29, 2016
Design by Doyle Partners Edited by Dorsey Waxter, Liz Sadeghi, Sophia Jackson and Nick Naber Artwork photography by Charles Benton © The Hedda Sterne Foundation, Inc / Licensed by ARS, New York, NY Additional photography © by Gjon Mili / The LIFE Picture Collection / Getty Images (p. 2); Karl Bissinger papers, University of Delaware Library, Newark, Delaware (p. 32).
We would like to thank Sanford Hirsch, Shaina Larrivee and the Hedda Sterne Foundation for their unwavering support in the production of this exhibition. ISBN: 978-0-9908058-3-0 Printed and bound in Boston by Grossman Marketing Group © VAN DOREN WAXTER, New York, NY. All rights reserved. No Part of the contents of this catalogue may be reproduced without permission of the publisher. Cover: HS 2429, p. 9 Frontispiece: HS 2481, p. 17
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