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Edna Hibel
Edna Hibel began painting at the age of 9 in elementary school. In January 2005 she celebrated her 88th birthday. Edna Hibel has been an artist for some 70 years, known for her sensitive, yet powerful portrayals of humanity and nature in the mediums of oil painting, drawing, lithography, serigraphy, etching, and sculpture in bronze, crystal, and porcelain.
In 1940, when Edna Hibel was just 22 years old, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts purchased one of her paintings for its permanent collection, making Edna Hibel the youngest artist at the time so honored by a major American museum. Over the years, exhibitions of Edna Hibel art have been held in prestigious museums, art galleries, universities and palaces in more than 20 countries across four continents, and under royal patronage in Europe and Britain. Major institutions which have acquired Edna Hibel art for their permanent collections include :
- Harvard University
- Boston University
- Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
- Springfield Museum of Arts, Massachusetts
- University of New Hampshire
- Fleischmann Collection, Cincinnati
- Detroit Art Institute
- Milwaukee Art Museum
- Phoenix Art Museum
- La Jolla Museum, California
- Lowe Gallery, University of Miami, Florida
- Columbus Museum of Arts and Crafts, Georgia
- Warren Hall Coutts, Ill, Memorial Museum of Art, El Dorado, Kansas
- Palais des Nations,Geneva, Switzerland
- United Nations Headquarters, New York City
- Norton Gallery, West Palm Beach, Florida
- de Saisset Museum, Santa Clara, California
- Russian Academy of Art, St. Petersburg, Russia
- Hibel Museum of Art, Lake Worth, Florida
In 2001, Edna Hibel received the Leonardo da Vinci World Award of Arts, a prestigious international award granted only once every three years. Edna
Hibel is only the second woman, and the first American woman, to receive this
Award. Edna Hibel has received various accolades, both artistic and humanitarian in nature, such as medals of honor and citations from many heads of state, academic institutions, and religions, including His Eminence Pope John Paul II, a tribute from Queen Elizabeth II, and the Presidential Award from the John F. Kennedy Foundation, resulting in her being widely known as an ambassador for world peace.
For over 40 years, Edna Hibel has been referred to as America’s best-loved and most versatile artist, and best colorist. In 1983, Edna Hibel created a painting to mark the launching of the UN World Food Program. The painting, named “Mother Earth”, became a UN postal stamp. Edna Hibel was acclaimed the “Heart and Conscience of America” when she was commissioned by the Foundations of the US National Archives in 1995 to commemorate 75 years of women receiving the universal right to vote.
To commemorate the 200th anniversary of the White House in 2000, Edna Hibel was asked to create a painting, also called the “Heart and Conscience of America”. Edna Hibel expresses her personal philosophy, which she calls “Positive Humanism,” in all her work.
“I like to feel that I’m painting what the human being is, and should be, or what I would like it to be, and feel so much of it is. I see such wonderful qualities in the human being—the integrity, the goodness, the kindness. That’s what I like to think I paint.”
Edna Hibel has been cited for her innovations in artistic methods. She uses many media, including fresco, on a wide variety of surfaces such as canvas, wood, silk, shells, plaster, Japanese rice paper, and cameo paper, often working with oil glazes and gold leaf.
Edna Hibel is renowned for her stone lithographs, which entail working with up to 32 stones (or colors). When it comes to original stone lithography, no other artist has created as many multicolor lithographs as Edna Hibel, and no other artist even comes close to Edna Hibel in quantity, quality, or complexity.
Edna Hibel developed a secret process enabling her to transfer color separations using stone lithography onto porcelain. Edna Hibel's ‘Arte Ovale’ series and various plaques employ this technique. In June 2003, she celebrated the completion of her 600th edition of original stone lithographs, a rare achievement for any artist. Aptly titled, Edna Hibel’s 600th stone lithograph was called “The Epic”.
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