Beatrice Mandelman Abstract Paintings

“Yellow Sun” is a striking original 1970s abstract acrylic painting by renowned modernist Beatrice Mandelman (1912–1998). A powerful example of mid-century geometric abstraction, thi...

Waterline Fine Art, Austin, TX is pleased to present the following work: Diptych, acrylic on canvas. Signed lower right. Two canvases, joined along vertical stretcher on verso. 40 x 60 in. 41 x 61 in. (framed) Custom framed in maple. Provenance Estate of Beatrice Mandelman 203 Fine Art, Taos, NM A certificate of authenticity issued by the Mandelman Ribak Collection at the University of New Mexico Foundation will be provided with this work. Beatrice Mandelman was born on December 31, 1912 in Newark, New Jersey. At age 12, she began taking classes at the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Art, subsequently attending Rutgers University, the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Art, and the Art Students League in New York. In 1935, Mandelman was employed by the Works Progress Administration (WPA), first as a muralist and then as a printmaker with the Graphic Division of the New York Project. One of the original members of the Silk Screen Unit under Anthony Velonis, she worked until the disbandment of the WPA in 1942. During this period, she was associated with numerous New York School artists including Louis Lozowick, Willem de Kooning, Arshile Gorky, Jackson Pollock, and Stuart Davis. Mandelman married fellow artist Louis Ribak in 1942, and two years later they traveled to Santa Fe, NM to visit his teacher and mentor, the artist John Sloan. Finding Santa Fe congested, they took the train along the Rio Grande and a stagecoach up to Taos and decided to settle there. An impulsive and inspired move, it was a decision that would effectively remove them from mainstream art involvement, for which Santa Fe had become an important outpost in the west. While Taos was a well-known within the art community, there were no galleries exhibiting modern art. This changed later in the decade, with an influx of new artists arriving from New York and California. Some of these artists would come to be known collectively as the “Taos Moderns...