Sigmund Abeles

Sigmund Abeles (Simcha ben Shmuel), born 1934 in New York, is an artist whose work deals with the expressive and psychological aspects of the human figure as well as animals: an art focused on the life cycle. Drawing informs all of his work. He works in pastels, oils, graphic media, and sculpture.

Now Professor Emeritus at the University of New Hampshire, he also taught at Wellesley College and Boston University. After 27 years of teaching, Abeles works full-time in his New York City and upstate New York studios. He currently teaches a master class in figure drawing at the Art Students League of New York.

He is the recipient of numerous grants and awards and is a National Academician. His work can be found in many public institutions including (among others) the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Chicago Art Institute, Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, the Philadelphia Museum, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

In 1981, the American Jewish Committee awarded him a United States professors’ grant to Israel. In 2000, a successful solo exhibition was held at Thomas Williams Fine Arts, Old Bond Street, London. In 2004, the Pastel Society of America in New York made him its Hall of Fame Honoree at the National Arts Club. In 2011, he was guest curator for “An Artist’s Eye,” an exhibition selected from the Columbia (South Carolina) Museum of Arts’ permanent collection of 20th & 21st Century art, concurrently with “It Figures,” a solo exhibition of his work. In the same year, another solo, “Drawn to the Figure,” was mounted at the Kalamazoo Art Institute.

Manfred Kirchheimer’s feature-length film “Art…The Permanent Revolution,” on the history of the art of protest in prints where Mr. Abeles is prominently featured, premiered in January 2012 and was shown again at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 2017.

In 2017, The Artist Fellowship honored Sigmund Abeles with the Benjamin West Clinedinst Memorial Medal.