Isabelle Waldberg, ''née'' Isabelle Margaretha Maria Farner (1911–1990) was a French-Swiss sculptor associated with surrealism.

Life

Born in

Oberstammheim Oberstammheim is a former municipality in the district of Andelfingen in the canton of Zurich in Switzerland. History In 2009, archaeologists announced the discovery of an Iron Age (late Hallstatt or early La Tène) tumulus burial, apparently ...

, Switzerland Isabelle Farner studied under

Hannes Meyer Hans Emil "Hannes" Meyer (18 November 1889 – 19 July 1954) was a Swiss architect and second director of the Bauhaus Dessau from 1928 to 1930. Early life Meyer was born in Basel, Switzerland, trained as a mason, and practiced as an architect ...

in Zurich before moving to

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, 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), ma ...

in 1936, where she studied under Marcel Gimond at the Académie Colarossi, Robert Vlerick at the Académie de la Grande Chaumiere and Charles Malfray at the Académie Ranson. Studying in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany Regions of Italy, region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilan ...

in 1937, she returned to Paris, where she came to know Alberto Giacometti, Georges Bataille,

André Masson André-Aimé-René Masson (4 January 1896 – 28 October 1987) was a French artist. Biography Masson was born in Balagny-sur-Thérain, Oise, but when he was eight his father's work took the family first briefly to Lille and then to Brussel ...

and her future husband Patrick Waldberg. From 1938 to 1940 she studied

sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation an ...

and ethnography at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes. She also attended discussion of the sacred at the College of Sociology, and contributed to Bataille's journal ''

Acéphale ''Acéphale'' is the name of a public review created by Georges Bataille (which numbered five issues, from 1936 to 1939) and a secret society formed by Bataille and others who had sworn to keep silent. Its name is derived from the Greek ἀκέ� ...

''. In 1941 she travelled to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, where she lived for the next five years. There she was influenced by surrealist exiles, including Andre Breton,

Max Ernst Max Ernst (2 April 1891 – 1 April 1976) was a German (naturalised American in 1948 and French in 1958) painter, sculptor, printmaker, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was a primary pioneer of the Dada movement and Surrealis ...

and

Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...

. During this period she started working on "constructions" made of bound beech dowels, these were exhibited at the gallery Art Of This Century owned by Peggy Guggenheim, in 1943. She contributed to the magazine '' VVV'' in 1944, and held her first exhibition at The Art of This Century gallery. Returning to Paris in 1946, she worked in Duchamp's old studio at 11 Rue Larrey. From 1947 to 1948 she co-edited ''Da Costa Encyclopédique'', a surrealist review, with the writer Robert Lebel.A New Acquisition

Frick Art Reference Library The Frick Art Reference Library is the research arm of The Frick Collection. Its reference services have temporarily relocated to the Breuer building at 945 Madison Avenue, called Frick Madison, during the renovation of the Frick's historic build ...

Works

* ''Laocoon'', 1950 * ''La Ruine'', 1965 * ''Portrait intérieur'', 1907 * ''Delescluze descend vers le Chateau d'Eau'', 1973 * ''Le Cypres dans la Cour'', 1974 * ''Portrait de Marcel Duchamp sur un échiquier ...'', 1978-79

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Waldberg, Isabelle 1911 births 1990 deaths Swiss sculptors Swiss surrealist artists French surrealist artists Women surrealist artists Académie Colarossi alumni École pratique des hautes études alumni