Background

Hedda Sterne was born on August 4, 1910 in Bucharest, Romania. She was a daughter of Simon Lidenberg, a language teacher, and Eugenie (Wexler) Lidenberg. Hedda also had a brother Edouard Lindenberg, who was a well-known conductor in Paris.

Education

In her childhood, Hedda learned music and languages, such as German, French and English. Later, she attended Institutul de Domnişoare Choisy-Mangâru, a private girl's school in Bucharest.

In the late 1920's, Sterne took classes in ceramics at the Kunsthistorisches Museum. In 1929, she entered the University of Bucharest, where she studied art history and philosophy under Tudor Vianu, Mircea Florian and Nae Ionescu. Hedda also attended the ateliers of Fernand Léger and André Lhote, and the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris.

Career

At the very beginning of Hedda's career, she worked in the studio of Frederic Storck and the studio of Marcel Janco. Staying in Paris during the early 1930's, Hedda attended the exhibitions, dedicated to Surrealism movement. She was particularly drawn to the Surrealist practice of automatism and by the late 1930's, she had developed her own unique method of constructing automatic collages.

In the summer of 1939, Hedda and her husband Fritz Stern returned to Bucharest. In the spring of 1940, Fritz left for New York, but Hedda remained in Bucharest with her family. On October 17, 1941, she left for New York. Some time later, the couple changed their last name from Stern to Stafford.

Also, in the early 1940's, Hedda regularly exhibited her works at the Art of This Century gallery, which was opened by Peggy Guggenheim. In was during that time, when she started her collaboration with Betty Parsons, who gave her first solo exhibition in the United States at Wakefield Gallery. In 1950, Sterne took part in the "Artists' Sessions at Studio 35", a discussion about the modern art scene in New York. On May 20, 1950, she was one of those eighteen painters and ten sculptors, who signed an open letter to the president of The Metropolitan Museum of Art to protest aesthetically conservative group-exhibition juries.

During the 1960's, Hedda lead a relatively private life, however, she continued to take part in different exhibitions. In 1977, Sterne held her first retrospective exhibition at the Montclair Art Museum, and in 1885 at Queens Museum. Some time later, she collaborated with Michel Butor on a book "La Révolution dans l'Arboretum".

Hedda Sterne continued to paint even during the 1980's and the 1990's, despite the fact, that she was affected by macular degeneration.

Achievements

• Hedda's most famous works are "New York VII" (1954), "Machine 5" (1950), "Third Avenue El" (1952-1953), "New York, N.Y., 1955" (1955).
  
  The artist received many awards, including Fulbright Fellowship (1963), Childe Hassam Purchase Award (1971), Hassam and Speicher Purchase Fund Award (1984). In 1999, she was made a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters.
  
  Sterne’s works are kept in the collections of different museums, including Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Modern Art, Tate Modern and others.

Works

More photos

• painting

  • New York, VIII

  • New York

  • Rectangles

  • The Artist Saul Steiberg

  • Machine (Anthropograph No. 13)

  • Visages

  • Katsonarock (Portrait of V.X.)

  • New York, N.Y., 1955

  • Saul Steinberg

  • Reclining Nude

  • Composition

  • Third Avenue El

  • Portrait of Frederick Kiesler

  • Further I

  • Untitled

  • Untitled

  • Untitled (August 13, 2001)

  • NY, NY No. X

  • Figure and Black Mantle

  • Untitled from Metaphores and Metamorphoses

  • Composition (Drawing)

  • Roads, No. 6

  • Signs III

  • Machine 5

  • Alaska 1

  • Cadavre exquis with Theodor Brauner

  • Untitled

  • Serenity and Chaos (October 10, 2001)

  • N.Y. 1 (Road #4)

  • Untitled

  • Ink Drawing

  • The Ballerina

  • Tondo

  • Vertical-Horizontal I

  • Feminine character

  • Untitled (Machine)

  • Tondo #22

  • Antro II

  • Diary

  • Metaphores and Metamorphoses

Views

Quotations: "My idea being that for the sublime and the beautiful and the interesting, you do not have to look far away. You have to know how to see."

"I have a feeling that in art the need to understand and the need to communicate are one."

"For me, cooking is an extension of love."

"I knew I wanted to be an artist at age 5 or 6. I always drew. At 8, I was permitted to study."

Membership

• Irascible 18

  1950

Connections

Hedda married Fritz Stern in 1932. Some time later, the couple divorced and on October 11, 1944, she married Saul Steinberg, who was a cartoonist and illustrator.

Father:

Simon Lidenberg

Mother:

Eugenie (Wexler) Lidenberg

First husband:

Fritz Stern

Brother:

Edouard Lindenberg

Second husband:

Saul Steinberg

colleague:

Betty Parsons

mentor:

Tudor Vianu

mentor:

Nae Ionescu

References

• Hedda Sterne, The Discovery of Early Years 1910-1941
  2018
• Hedda Sterne: Forty Years
  1985