Harold Ambellan (1912–2006) was an American sculptor. Born in Buffalo, New York Ambellan provided sculpture for New Deal-era projects and served as President 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 ...

in 1941, prior to his service in the U.S. military. Ambellan exiled himself to France in 1954 because of his political views.

New York

Ambellan was born on May 24, 1912, in

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from South ...

. While studying

sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

and

fine art In European academic traditions, fine art is developed primarily for aesthetics or creative expression, distinguishing it from decorative art or applied art, which also has to serve some practical function, such as pottery or most metalwork ...

s in Buffalo, he was awarded a

scholarship A scholarship is a form of financial aid awarded to students for further education. Generally, scholarships are awarded based on a set of criteria such as academic merit, diversity and inclusion, athletic skill, and financial need. Scholarsh ...

to the

Art Students League of New York The Art Students League of New York is an art school at 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. Although artists may stu ...

in 1930, where he spent the following two years. Beginning in 1932 Ambellan was based in

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

and became a significant figure in its social history of the 1930s and early 1940s. For instance in the 1940s Ambellan and his fiancee Elisabeth Higgins hosted both

Pete Seeger Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American folk singer and social activist. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, Seeger also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers, notably ...

and

Woody Guthrie Woodrow Wilson Guthrie (; July 14, 1912 – October 3, 1967) was an American singer-songwriter, one of the most significant figures in American folk music. His work focused on themes of American socialism and anti-fascism. He has inspired ...

at 31 East 21st Street. Guthrie contributed his song "It Takes a Married Man to Sing a Worried Song" for their wedding. From 1935 until 1939 he was one of the many American artists who benefited from Roosevelt's

Federal Art Project The Federal Art Project (1935–1943) was a New Deal program to fund the visual arts in the United States. Under national director Holger Cahill, it was one of five Federal Project Number One projects sponsored by the Works Progress Administrati ...

. With fellow sculptor Robert Cronbach, Ambellan created a series of semi-abstract tinted-concrete mural sculptures entitled ''Family'' and ''Learning'', for the Willert Park Courts, a

public housing project Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is usually owned by a government authority, either central or local. Although the common goal of public housing is to provide affordable housing, the details, terminology, def ...

, as well as a sculpture for

Brooklyn College Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls about 15,000 undergraduate and 2,800 graduate students on a 35-acre campus. Being New York City's first publ ...

in New York. He was also one of the artists featured in the 1938 group show, Subway Art, at the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

. Ambellan was elected President of the

in 1941, the same year that his work was exhibited in group shows at both the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

in New York and the Academy of Fine Arts in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

. After the collapse of

Federal Arts Project The Federal Art Project (1935–1943) was a New Deal program to fund the visual arts in the United States. Under national director Holger Cahill, it was one of five Federal Project Number One projects sponsored by the Works Progress Administratio ...

grants and building on the experience of the

WPA WPA may refer to: Computing *Wi-Fi Protected Access, a wireless encryption standard *Windows Product Activation, in Microsoft software licensing * Wireless Public Alerting (Alert Ready), emergency alerts over LTE in Canada * Windows Performance An ...

's New York Poster studio, Ambellan explored silkscreening as a method of decorating ceramic tiles. He and wife Elisabeth Higgins, not an artist, established Designed Tiles with the financial help of patio furniture manufacturer John Salterini whose Mediterranean tile supply was cut off early in World War II. The Designed Tiles studio was financially successful, selling to tile wholesalers, and hired artists from New York and exiles from Europe. The Danish folk-artist, Tusnelda Sanders

has been identified as one of these artists. With the help of a manager and despite the war, travel and their late 1940s divorce, the Ambellans operated Designed Tiles from 1942 to 1958, when it was sold to friends, the Sklanskys. In 1944, as a member of the

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage o ...

, Ambellan participated in the liberation of

Normandy Normandy (; french: link=no, Normandie ; nrf, Normaundie, Nouormandie ; from Old French , plural of ''Normant'', originally from the word for "northman" in several Scandinavian languages) is a geographical and cultural region in Northwestern ...

. Upon his return to New York, he spent two years teaching

three dimensional art Three-dimensional (3D) art may refer to: * digital art created using 3D computer graphics * any form of visual art resulting in a three-dimensional phyiscal object, such as sculpture, architecture, installation art and many decorative art forms * tw ...

at the Workshop School. Although the artists who became known as the

Abstract Expressionists Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...

were among his friends in New York, Ambellan remained committed to the figurative in both his sculpture and painting. Ambellan's name was published in 1948 documents of the

House Un-American Activities Committee The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloy ...

in connection with his support for the

American Artists' Congress The American Artists' Congress (AAC) was an organization founded in February 1936 as part of the popular front of the Communist Party USA as a vehicle for uniting graphic artists in projects helping to combat the spread of fascism. During World W ...

and the Artists' Front to Win the War. For his political views he became a victim of the tide of

McCarthyism McCarthyism is the practice of making false or unfounded accusations of subversion and treason, especially when related to anarchism, communism and socialism, and especially when done in a public and attention-grabbing manner. The term origin ...

sweeping the country, which culminated in his decision to exile to France in 1954. He intended to stay in France for one year, but later decided to make his home there.

France

After living several years in

Montparnasse Montparnasse () is an area in the south of Paris, France, on the left bank of the river Seine, centred at the crossroads of the Boulevard du Montparnasse and the Rue de Rennes, between the Rue de Rennes and boulevard Raspail. Montparnasse has bee ...

, one of the principal artistic communities of

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, Ambellan decided to settle in the Greek-Roman enclave town of

Antibes Antibes (, also , ; oc, label=Provençal dialect, Provençal, Antíbol) is a coastal city in the Alpes-Maritimes Departments of France, department of southeastern France, on the French Riviera, Côte d'Azur between Cannes and Nice. The town of ...

on the

Côte d'Azur The French Riviera (known in French as the ; oc, Còsta d'Azur ; literal translation " Azure Coast") is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France. There is no official boundary, but it is usually considered to extend fro ...

. In 1980, he settled in the Provençal town of

Arles Arles (, , ; oc, label= Provençal, Arle ; Classical la, Arelate) is a coastal city and commune in the South of France, a subprefecture in the Bouches-du-Rhône department of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, in the former province of ...

, where he lived until the end of his life. In France, he continued his exploration of the human figure in art, with the emphasis shifting over time from sculpture to painting. While exhibiting throughout Europe (culminating in two retrospectives: in 1976, at the Museum Baden in

Solingen Solingen (; li, Solich) is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located some 25 km east of Düsseldorf along the northern edge of the region called Bergisches Land, south of the Ruhr area, and, with a 2009 population of 161,366, ...

, Germany; and in 2001, at the Espace Van Gogh in Arles), he created, most notably, a collection of medals for the

Monnaie de Paris The Monnaie de Paris (Paris Mint) is a government-owned institution responsible for producing France's coins. Founded in AD 864 with the Edict of Pistres, it is the world's oldest continuously running minting institution. In 1973, the mint reloc ...

, as well as a

monumental sculpture The term monumental sculpture is often used in art history and criticism, but not always consistently. It combines two concepts, one of function, and one of size, and may include an element of a third more subjective concept. It is often used for ...

and several smaller pieces for the Nathan Cummings Collection. Ambellan pointed to sources as varied as

German Expressionism German Expressionism () consisted of several related creative movements in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin during the 1920s. These developments were part of a larger Expressionist movement in north and central ...

and

cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

Indian Indian or Indians may refer to: Peoples South Asia * Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor ** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country * South Asia ...

and

African art African art describes the modern and historical paintings, sculptures, installations, and other visual culture from native or indigenous Africans and the African continent. The definition may also include the art of the African diasporas, su ...

as his sources of inspiration. Surrounded by family and friends, Ambellan died in Arles on April 21, 2006.

Exhibitions and commissions

*1935: Exhibition ACA Gallery,

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. *1936-38:

: :::Mural sculptures for Willert Park Courts,

, with Robert Cronbach.''DEPRESSION_ERA_PUBLIC_ART/willert_wpa_art'' at wnyhistory.com
Accessed 26 December 2016 :::Sculpture for

, New York. :::Animal Sculptures for Buffalo Zoo. *1937: Collective exhibition with the Bombshell Group, New York. *1938: Collective exhibition Subway Art,

, New York. *1939: Exhibition of Federation of Modern Painters and Sculptors, Wildenstein Gallery, New York. *1941: Collective exhibition,

, New York. :::Exhibition

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 ...

, Philadelphia. *1942: Artists for Victory, An Exhibition of Contemporary American Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. *1942: Plaster relief Gardeners, U.S. Post Office, Metuchen, New Jersey. *1947: Sculpture exhibition with Robert Cronbach, 44th Street Gallery, New York. *1950: Exhibition Salpeter Gallery, New York. *1953: Sculpture for Wedgwood showroom, New York. *1961: Exhibition Galerie Jean Camoin, Paris. *1971: Exhibition Schneider Gallery, Rome. :::Exhibition Galerie du Port, Rolle, Switzerland. *1972: Monumental sculpture and various pieces for the Nathan Cummings Collection, Chicago. *1976: Retrospective exhibition, Museum of Solingen, Germany. *1978: Exhibition Van Remmen Gallery, Solingen, Germany *1980: Exhibition Voir le voir, Arles, France. *1981: Exhibition Baux de Provence *1982: Exhibition Galerie du Cercle, Paris. :::Exhibition Centre Culturel de la Jeunesse, Festival de Danse d’Istres, Marseille. *1982: Exhibition Van Remmen Gallery, Solingen, Germany. *1983: Exhibition Glass Gallery, New York. *1987: Exhibition of sculptures, Cannes. :::Exhibition Glass Gallery, New York. *1988: Exhibition Galerie du Forum, Arles. *1990: Exhibition Galerie Art et Communication, Paris. :::Exhibition Glass Gallery, New York. *1991-94: Exhibition Olympic Art, La Défense, Paris. :::Ceramic mural, Le Home, Albertville, France. :::Exhibition Hommage à Ambellan, Actes Sud, Arles. :::Exhibition Galerie Réattu, Arles. :::Exhibition Van Remmen Gallery, Solingen, Germany. :::Public auction, Griffin, London. :::Public auction, Drouot, Paris. *1999: Exhibition Le Bois Retrouvé, Paris. *2000: Exhibition Galerie Michèle Paureau, Paris. *2001: Retrospective exhibition, Espace Van Gogh, Arles.

References

External links

Biography in English
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ambellan, Harold 1912 births 2006 deaths United States Navy personnel of World War II American emigrants to France Artists from Buffalo, New York 20th-century American painters American male painters 21st-century American painters 21st-century American male artists 20th-century American sculptors 20th-century American male artists American male sculptors Art Students League of New York alumni Victims of McCarthyism Federal Art Project artists Sculptors from New York (state)