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The NYSWA Past and Present

The New York Society of Women Artists was founded in 1925 by avant-garde women artists who sought greater visibility for their work in a predominantly male-oriented art world. Early members included four artists who participated in the first large exhibition of modernism in this country, the groundbreaking “Armory Show” of 1913, viewed as a turning point for American art. Several NYSWA founders were also in the Society of Independent Artists and the Whitney Studio Club, which later became the Whitney Museum of American Art. Original NYSWA members earned Guggenheim Fellowships and the Prix de Rome. Six participated in the WPA’s Federal Art Program established in 1935 under the New Deal.

Today NYSWA’s membership is held to sixty painters and sculptors living within a 60-mile radius of New York City. They are award-winning professionals who work in a wide variety of styles, media, and subjects and actively exhibit locally, nationally, and internationally. Their work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions and can be found in galleries, museums, corporate, and private collections in the U.S., South America, Asia and Europe.

“In step with the early founders, the Society members have relentlessly continued to carry a strong voice in the art world, both as individual artists and as a group. The work, always fresh, at times bordering on the controversial, is dynamic and lively. These artists are not afraid to push perceived boundaries,” declares the NYSWA statement. This spirit of creative quest is a common goal that unites and propels a diverse group of independent artists exploring a broad spectrum of interests.

One of the group’s most prominent members is Leonda Finke whose sculpture is in the collections of both The British Museum in London and The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. Other museums in the U.S. that own works by current NYSWA members include The National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., The Heckscher Museum in Huntington, NY, The New Britain Museum of American Art, The Zimmerli Museum at Rutgers University, and The Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown Ohio, which also owns works by such noted early NYSWA members as Minna Harkavy (1895-1987), Henrietta Shore (1880-1963), and Bena Frank Mayer (1898-1994) whose work is also included in the Smithsonian collection.

“I can only imagine the fortitude that was required by the Society’s founders to pursue their calling, their passion, their art at a time when it was difficult to secure prominent exhibition opportunities for professional women artists. The Society's mission among other things was to do just that -- provide opportunities for the members’ work to be seen. Although "we've come a long way" and women continue to excel and appreciate recognition in all professional arenas, the group's purpose is still relevant,” says sculptor Elise Black, the current President of NYSWA, who helped organize the Carriage Barn exhibition.

“I find it inspiring to continue in the footsteps of my predecessors, and be active in a society that began 80 years ago, in a tradition of women supporting other women,” said Black. She added, “We benefit from sharing each other’s experience, ideas and resources. We, as a group, share a common thread with each other and those who came before us. We are dynamic and passionate about what we do ... we are creators.”

As it enters its 9th decade, the NYSWA is looking ahead to the challenges of the 21st Century. In addition to remaining an important presence in the visual arts, the Society hopes to continue in the tradition of women helping women by reaching out to the community and partnering with relevant causes such as breast cancer research. “I can think of no greater way to utilize our group's combined creative energy and talents," said Black.

Brief Bios for Ten of the Exhibition Artists

Barbara Arum of New York uses wood, steel, textiles, stained glass, and bronze to create sculptures that reflect her sensitivity to nature, concern for the environment, and a respect for all living things. The “Reliquary Series” included in this show contains found objects behind doors that invite the viewer to interact with the works.

Elise Black of Westport began her art career in New York as a fashion illustrator, later owning her own design and merchandising firm. After “retiring” to rear her children she took up painting and sculpture. She works in a variety of media and has done site-specific sculpture installations as public commissions for both the Saugatuck and Kings Highway Elementary Schools in Westport. "Promise of Perfection" in the current exhibition is a mixed media casting that speaks to society's obsession with physical perfection. “I left all of the imperfections from the mold on purpose,” says Black. “The wings on the figure suggest a metamorphosis.”

Wendy Brest of Stamford is a Connecticut native with a background in Classics who started her art career in drawing classes at Silvermine. She considers her abstract collages as metaphors for quilts. “They derive from my own domesticity … created from the detritus of my household – a kind of archeology,” says the artist who “revels in the incongruities of the materials” and the challenge of making “artless elements” into a coherent work.

Since her childhood emigration from Croatia to Israel in 1948, Tamar Hirschl has seen painting and drawing “as a way to build both imaginary and real bridges between my memories…and the future.” Hirschl, who moved to New York in 1999, says her primary artistic concerns are the forces that disrupt and separate people, cultures, and religions. Her recent paintings address the modern world of conflict – war, terrorism, ethnic struggles, global unrest – “one that craves expressions of healing.”

Benice Horowitz of Stamford has a passion for painting and the process that “converts my temperament and mood to painterly marks.” The results are lushly colored, gestural interpretations that “capture the spirit of the place and my emotional responses to what I observe.” The artist who is originally from South Africa came to Stamford in 1979. She is a past President of the NYSWA, past Vice-President of the Stamford Art Association and is a member of the Silvermine Guild of Artists, among other juried groups.

French born artist Mireille Lemarchand, now a Greenwich resident, studied in Paris at l’Ecole Nationale des Beaux Arts before coming to New York. She continued her studies at the Parsons School of Design as well as at the The New Canaan Sculpture Group with Stanley Bleifeld. Working in clay from a live model, Lemarchand’s figurative sculptures are at once quiet and expressive of a hidden energy, celebrating femininity as “the perfect balance of strength and grace.” Whether the unique terracotta original or a bronze casting, Lemarchand wants the viewer to connect “not just to the figure, but to the process and the emotions I experienced when I was sculpting – if they do, that makes it all worthwhile.”

Olga Poloukhine of LaGrangeville, NY was born in Paris, France of Russian émigré parents and came to New York after World War II. She went to Rutgers, earned a MA in Art Education from Columbia and taught in the public schools for several years before beginning her own artwork. Initially graphics were her main focus and she founded the Graphic Eye Gallery in Long Island. In the mid-80’s she turned to painting in egg tempera on gesso, depicting haunting personal images that are closely related to the traditional Russian Iconography she also creates.

Maureen Renahan-Krinsley of New Canaan works in multiple media as a painter and printmaker using color in layers to create expressive landscapes or abstract images. She studied at Pratt, SUNY Purchase, and Silvermine, where she is both a member of the Guild and the Board of Directors, as well as serving on the faculty teaching abstraction. She has also been an instructor at Cornell University, SUNY Purchase, and Mount St. Vincent College. At the elementary South School in New Canaan, she has been a resident artist and Director of the Art Enrichment Program. The current exhibition features the artist’s engaging landscapes in watercolor with pastel and encaustic from her Martha’s Vineyard series.

Tina Rohrer of Pound Ridge, NY loves nature and the optical qualities of color. Working in acrylic using a painting technique inspired by Seurat’s color theory and Albers’s geometrical presentation, color interaction becomes most important and individual marks lose their identity. In three-dimensional wooden structures or paintings with the illusion of three dimensions, color integration and balance enhance the meditative quality of the art. “Confronting my own mortality has increased my awareness of deeply rooted spiritual concerns,” said Rohrer. “My work deals with some type of universal union.”

Isabel Shaw of West Harrison, NY was reared in Greenwich Village when it was “an artists’ and writers’ haven.” She received a BFA from Bard and then studied graphic design at Cooper Union and the School of Visual Arts. At the same time she taught modern dance, working with Martha Graham and Hanya Holm as she had since her early childhood. Shaw credits dance as the impetus to turn from graphics to three-dimensional work. Her bronze sculptures are stylized versions of the human form caught in mid-motion.

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