Stella Waitzkin (1920–2003) was an American installation artist known for sculptural representation of books.

Biography

Waitzkin was born New York City in 1920. She studied with 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 ...

Hans Hofmann Hans Hofmann (March 21, 1880 – February 17, 1966) was a German-born American painter, renowned as both an artist and teacher. His career spanned two generations and two continents, and is considered to have both preceded and influenced Abstrac ...

and Willem de Kooning. She was the recipient of nine MacDowell fellowships from 1974 through 1984. She was a member of the Women Artists in Revolution, and a member of Art Worker's Coalition during the 1970s. She died in 2003 in New York City. Prior to her death she agreed to the formation of the ''Waitzkin Memorial Library Trust'' which then distributed her works to over sixty museums. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Walker Art Center as well as the

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of char ...

, 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 ...

, the University at Albany, and the

Gregg Museum of Art & Design The Gregg Museum of Art & Design is the art museum of North Carolina State University and is located near NC State's main campus in Raleigh, North Carolina. To current NC State chancellor Randy Woodson, the Gregg is "an opportunity to not only ce ...

. A significant collection of her works was obtained by the John Michael Kohler Arts Center including three sculptural walls based on Waitzkin's Hotel Chelsea living room.

Works

Waitzkin focused on the objecthood of books as works of art, much like ancient scrolls and illuminated manuscripts. Starting in the mid-1960s, she started to make hundreds of sculptures in cast polyester resin, molded in the form of books. The John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin holds over 700 individual pieces of Stella Waitzkin's works. “Words are lies. I make the books to get away from the word. When I make the books, I feel like I’m telling folk stories; it’s all there inside the book. You don’t have to necessarily read it, see, because you already know the whole thing by heart.” Artist’s statement on Metamorphosis I.

References

External links

listing of awards and exhibits
at ArtNet {{DEFAULTSORT:Waitzkin, Stella 2003 deaths 1920 births 20th-century American women painters 20th-century American painters 21st-century American women