Helaine Blumenfeld OBE FRSS
Helaine Blumenfeld OBE continually re-invents herself in her search for a vocabulary of form. Helaine’s work communicates on many levels: visual, tactile and emotional. She is passionate about bringing sculpture into the public domain and her commissions energise landscapes all over the world. Blumenfeld’s sculptures often seem weightless as she strives to translate a spiritual dimension. Her work is a journey of discovery and growth. She divides her working life between Pietrasanta, Italy, and Cambridge, UK and has been honoured in both countries. In , she was the first woman to be awarded the prestigious ‘International Sculpture Prize: Pietrasanta and Versilia in the World’ and in was awarded an honorary OBE for services to the arts. Blumenfeld has held solo shows all over the world. Her work has been the subject of three monographs of art criticism and she has been the subject of several films including the recent Sky Arts documentary Hard Beauty: The Sculpture of Helaine Blumenfeld.
“Although society through technology appears to be increasingly connected, intimacy is lacking on a global level. We need to have a profound knowledge of each othe
Taking Risks
Helaine Blumenfeld at Robert Bowman Modern
Catherine Milner admires the timeless marble figures created by American sculptor Helaine Blumenfeld
Nothing matches the eroticism and languid sensuality of a carved piece of white marble. It is a material so versatile that it can be made to look as gassamer-thin and diaphanous as cloth, as crystalline as snow, or as smooth as flesh. Helaine Blumenfeld, a New Yorker who has settled in Cambridgeshire, is one of the UK&#;s most skilled at giving rock the breath of life. She has not been fashionable, she has not been cool. The trend in recent times has been towards sculpture made of found objects &#; driftwood, beds, even cows.
But, with the vogue for the handmade suddenly back, Dr Blumenfeld suddenly finds herself on the crest of a new wave of prominent DIY artists that includes Grayson Perry, Chris Ofili, even seamstress Tracey Emin. &#;Until recently, people working with a craft and beauty have been marginalised by those who don&#;t make their own work at all,&#; she says.
Dr Blumenfeld was born in New York in , her father a builder, her mother a Russian emigre who wrote poetry. At first, she seemed destined for a gl
“Helaine Blumenfeld is an artist who is continually reinventing herself in the search for a vocabulary of form. Sculpture, for her, is never concerned simply with observation or narrative, but with experience, with a knowledge which is far from obvious but which advances us in our understanding of who we are and how we fit into the world around us. Blumenfeld&#;s work communicates on a number of different levels, visual and imaginative, tactile and emotional, but underlying everything is an insistence on growth and development. For both artist and viewer, this sculpture represents a journey of revelation and discovery.”
Nicola Upson
“At the beginning of her career, Blumenfeld worked in the Paris studio of the Russian Cubist sculptor Ossip Zadkine. Such was the idiosyncratic nature of the sculptural style Zadkine evolved over his long career that critics coined the term ‘the Genre Zadkine’ to describe his work. Today, the same might be said of Helaine Blumenfeld, whose singular vision has brought us the ‘Genre Blumenfeld’, a style forged from a sculptural grammar that is entirely her own.
Finding and developing a unique creative voice in sculpture is not as straightforward a
Fame and Fortuna
Breaking the Mould with Sculptor Helaine Blumenfeld OBE
With a brand new sculpture in Jubilee Park, a major solo exhibition, and a BBC documentary set to air next year, sculptor Helaine Blumenfeld OBE is one of the most accomplished female sculptors of our time. She talks artistic dynasties and breaking the mould with Kari Colmans.
Having so far managed to fly relatively low under the radar when it comes to her personal profile, contemporary sculptor Helaine Blumenfeld OBE will be “taking some risks” this year. One of the most accomplished and respected figures working in sculpture today, her work has been shown in more than 70 exhibitions and she has completed more than 80 commissions worldwide over the past four decades.
“I’m not a public artist,” says Blumenfeld, who has just got back from Italy, where she’s been putting the final touches to her latest public sculpture ahead of its reveal. “Despite my family name [she is married to the writer Yorick and is the daughter-in-law of legendary fashion photographer Erwin], I live my life quite privately. Now that I’m in my 70s I’m taking more risks. I’ve broken my own rules; I’m thinking about my legacy.”
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