SIGMUND ABELES

SHORT BIOGRAPHY

Sigmund Abeles was born 1934 in New York City and raised in South Carolina. His work deals with the expressive and psychological aspects of the figure; an art focused on the life cycle. Drawing informs all of his work. Abeles works in pastels, oils and the graphic media as well as sculpture. Currently Professor Emeritus from the University of New Hampshire, after 27 years of teaching, Abeles works full-time in his NYC and upstate NY studios. Recipient of numerous grants and awards, a National Academician; the work of Sigmund Abeles may be found in many public institutions including (among others) British Museum, Chicago Art Institute, Fogg Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Philadelphia Museum and Whitney Museum of American Art.

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In 2000, a successful solo exhibition was held at Thomas Williams Fine Arts, Old Bond St., London, UK. In 2004, the Pastel Society of America in New York awarded him as their Hall of Fame Honoree.  In 2011, he was guest curator for An Artist’s Eye, an exhibition selected from the Columbia Museum of Art, South Carolina’s permanent collection of 20th & 21st Century art. Concurrently, It Figures, a solo exhibition of his work, was held at the Columbia Museum of Art. In the same year, another solo, Drawn to the Figure, was mounted at the Kalamazoo Art Institute.  In January 2012, Mr. Abeles was prominently featured in Manfred Kirchheimer’s feature length documentary, Art Is…The Permanent Revolution, focused on the methods of printmaking and the history of the art of protest in prints. In the fall of 2017, Sigmund Abeles received the Benjamin West Clinedinst Memorial Medal from The Artist Fellowship Inc., New York.

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