Biography

During a long and distinguished career Harriet FeBland’s sculpture, paintings, drawings and graphics have been shown in many countries outside the United States. These include England and France, Japan and Mexico. It was as an American abroad that this New York born and educated artist began her professional career. She lived and worked in England and France and actively participated in European art circles for more than a decade. Her recognition as a pioneer constructivist sculptor-painter came in the early 60’s with her major New York exhibition “Plastic in Art” at the Galerie International. It was soon followed with an invitation from Thelma Newman to be included in the book “Plastics As An Art Form” published by Chilton Press in 1963. This work is still considered the eminent text on the subject today. It also highlights the handful of pioneer artist’s working with plastics at that time, and the beginnings of ‘construction’ as the art form of Ms. FeBland.

Other articles appeared in magazines of the day. Harriet FeBland was termed ‘visionary’ and ‘innovator’ in Arts magazine; Today’s Art; Rohm & Haas Reporter; Plastics World; Art Journal and others. A major show of all her work was shown at the Hudson River Museum in 1963 when women artists were not easily welcomed to the art world mainstream. Her career varied, and she produced, paintings, sculpture, drawings and graphics and continued to criss-cross the Atlantic exhibiting her art until this day. She has worked with Stanley Hayter refining her graphics at the Atelier 17 in Paris, and showed at the Alwyn Galerie and the Drian Gallery in London and Musée D’Art Moderne, in Paris. Working with unusual materials, Plexiglas, acrylics, metals (nails) and electricity, long before they were acceptable or normal choices, she mixed her own paints from powdered plastics (acrylic paint was not yet invented) and coined the term ‘construction’ (now part of the art lexicon) to describe her style of sculpture.

Today her art is internationally collected and can be seen in the collections (in the USA) of Library of Congress, print collection, Washington D.C.Pepsico, Somers, N.Y.; Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, Ohio; Metromedia, Los Angeles; New School Art Center, New School For Social Research, New York City; Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey; The State of Hawaii, Art and Cultural Foundation, Hilo, Hawaii; The Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, N.Y., Grounds for Sculpture Museum, Hamilton, NY; and many others around the country. Her monumental aluminum totem titled “Electra” is a landmark sculpture installed at the entrance to the White Plains County Court House in Westchester County. Some major private collectors are: Mr. John Kluge, Los Angles, California; Honorable and Mrs. Irwin Davidson Collection of American Art, New York N.Y.; Dr and Mrs. John Haverly Collection (Director of the Agnes K Haverly Foundation, New York), and many others.

There have been 49 solo exhibitions of FeBland works and numerous invitational exhibitions. Invitational exhibits include Cincinnati Art Museum; Brooklyn Museum; Carnegie Institute; Grounds For Sculpture Museum; National Academy Of Design; New York Cultural Center; Musée D’Art Moderne; and many more. Ms. FeBland now works out of her studio in New York City and has been producing large and small constructions, particularly her renown boxes and totems, and a variety of drawings and prints. In recent years her interest in the Moku Hanga technique in woodcut block printing has resulted in a series of fine editions and giclée prints of her well known “Chronicle Series” drawings, produced and shown at the Contemporary Illustrators Gallery in 1998.

Throughout her career Harriet FeBland was actively concerned with artist’s affairs and became President of the American Society of Contemporary Artists in New York from 1981-83. Recently she was elected again for a second time as ASCA President from 2005 She has been President of New York Artists Equity Association from 1989-1990 and was Director of the Harriet FeBland Art Workshop. Her school for advance painters was founded in 1962 and continued until 1993 with master classes and workshops that were presented at London University-Chelsea School of Art, London England; New York University; Bennington College, Vermont; Iona College New Rochelle; Santa Fe New Mexico and elsewhere. She has received ABI’s American Medal of Honor Award-2002 and IBC, Cambridge, England “Visual Artist of the Year Award-2004”

For further information please see the following bibliographies:

Who’s Who in American Art; Who’s Who of American Women; Who’s Who in America; Who’s Who in the World; Dictionary of International Biographies (England); Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution; Who’s Who in the East Who’s Who in the 21st Century and others