Dorothea Greenbaum sculpture of Girl with Towel

Dorothea Schwarcz Greenbaum (1893–1986) was an American painter and sculptor.

Biography

She was born Dorothea Schwarcz to parents Emma and Maximilian Schwarcz in New York city on June 17, 1893. She studied at both the New York School of Fine and Applied Art and the

Art Students League The Art Students League of New York is an art school at American Fine Arts Society, 215 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists ...

. In 1915, when Dorothea was 22, her father Maximilain drowned during the

Sinking of the RMS Lusitania The was a UK-registered ocean liner that was torpedoed by an Imperial German Navy U-boat during the First World War on 7 May 1915, about off the Old Head of Kinsale, Ireland. The attack took place in the declared maritime war-zone around th ...

. As a young child, Greenbaum was chronically ill and could not attend traditional school. This lead her to enroll in Saturday art classes at the age of fifteen. She studied under the painter, Kenneth Hayes Miller. She discovered sculpting while recovering from an illness later in life, after she was given a piece of clay by a friend. Nature was her inspiration for her sculptures, as well as children, women and animals. Regarding her art, she was quoted in ''Dorothea Greenbaum: A Retrospective'', Exhibition Catalogue, 1972 : “I am interested in forms that displace the air around them.” She was included in the 1914 exhibition of the

National Academy of Design The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the fin ...

. She was first painter, and began working in sculpture at the age of 34. In 1941 she received the George D. Widener Memorial Medal from the

Pennsylvania Academy The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is a museum and private art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.National Association of Women Artists The National Association of Women Artists, Inc. (NAWA) is a United States organization, founded in 1889 to gain recognition for professional women fine artists in an era when that field was strongly male-oriented. It sponsors exhibitions, awards ...

. She was a member of the

Sculptors Guild Sculptors Guild, a society of sculptors who banded together to promote public interest in contemporary sculpture, was founded in 1937. Signatories to the original corporation papers (Sculptors Guild, Inc.) were Sonia Gordon Brown, Berta Margoulie ...

and was a founding member of New York Artists Equity Association in 1947. She died in 1986 in

Princeton, New Jersey Princeton is a municipality with a borough form of government in Mercer County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton and Princeton Township, both of whi ...

. In 1972, a 45-year retrospective exhibition of her work was presented at the

SculptureCenter SculptureCenter is a not-for-profit, contemporary art museum located in Long Island City, Queens, New York City. It was founded in 1928 as "The Clay Club" by Dorothea Denslow. In 2013, SculptureCentre attracted around 13,000 visitors. History Fou ...

, New York.

Collections

Her work is included in the collections of: * the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), ...

, * the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholar ...

, * the Princeton Art Museum, * the

Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts Pennsylvania (; (Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, Maryl ...

and * the

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds o ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Greenbaum, Dorothea 1893 births 1986 deaths 20th-century American sculptors Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters 20th-century American women sculptors