“At every point in my development as an artist. I find the same quality asserting myself - a ferocious intellectual pressure uninterested in easy effect, seeking the realization of some absolute pictorial truth.” - Beatrice Mandelman
Modern West is honored to exhibit the paper works of Taos Modernist Beatrice (Bea) Mandelman in an Online Exclusive Exhibition available May 1 - June 30, 2022. Ten paper works by Mandelman are included in the online exhibition in anticipation for an upcoming summer exhibition of works by Taos Modernists Mandelman and Louis Ribak.
Beatrice Mandelman (December 31, 1912 – June 24, 1998), known as Bea, was an American abstract artist associated with the group known as the Taos Moderns.
She was born in Newark, New Jersey to Anna Lisker Mandelman and Louis Mandelman, Jewish immigrants who imbued their children with their social justice values and love of the arts. After studying art in New York City and being employed by the Works Progress Administration Federal Arts Project (WPA-FAP), Mandelman arrived in Taos, New Mexico, with her artist husband Louis Leon Ribak in 1944 at the age of 32.
Mandelman’s oeuvre consisted mainly of paintings, prints, and collages. Much of her work was highly abstract, including her representational pieces such as cityscapes, landscapes, and still lifes. Through the 1940s, her paintings feature richly textured surfaces and a subtly modulated, often subdued color palette. New Mexico landscape and culture had a profound influence on Mandelman’s style, influencing it towards a brighter palette, more geometric forms, flatter surfaces, and more crisply defined forms. One critic wrote that the “twin poles” of her work were Cubism and Expressionism.
Her work is included in many major public collections, including large holdings at the University of New Mexico Art Museum and Harwood Museum of Art.
