Sylvia Wald

Sylvia Wald (October 30, 1915-2011) was an American visual artist. Born in Philadelphia, educated at Moore Institute of Art, she began as a painter of the American social realist school, before turning to Abstract Expressionism, through her pioneering work in silkscreening and sculptural collage. She has been noted for her "wide range of expression, diversity of media and technical excellence."

Biography

After graduation from Moore Institute, Wald worked as an elementary school art teacher in conjunction with the Works Project Administration (WPA). Her early work was reflective this social engagement. Working in the "social realist" tradition, she specialized in scenes of proletariat American life, which she then contributed to populist and Marxist journals of the period, including The New Masses. Wald moved to New York city in the late 1930s.

During the forties and fifties, with Abstract Expressionism rising to dominate the New York art scene, Wald's work became increasingly abstract. Eventually she would come to be seen as a pioneer of the movement, especially for her innovations in silkscreening, a technique she adopted in 1941 after observing Harry Gottlieb in Louisville, Kentucky, while on assignment with her husband, a medical practitioner. Instead of ink, the standard material, she used oil. She brought the "action painting" method, popularized by Jackson Pollack among others, to textile work, large-scale pieces 5-6 feet square.

In the sixties and afterward, Wald became more and more interested in sculpture, especially collage and assemblage. She often worked with paper, which she treated with the same sense of experimental abandon as she had previously brought to silkscreening -- dying, folding, twisting, ripping the material in search of new possibilities of expression.

After death of her first husband in 1963, and her mother several years later, her sculptural work became even more experimental, through the incorporation of more diverse materials, including wire, string, bamboo, and plaster.

She married artist Po Kim, with whom she established a non-profit art foundation, today located at their former in New York City residence.

Her work is featured in numerous collections, including: Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Solomon R.Guggenheim Museum, in New York, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C, Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, and Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts, Grunewald Collection Museum, U.C.L.A., Los Angeles, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, France, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England.