Charmion Von Wiegand

Charmion Von Wiegand

The Ancestral Altar from I Ching, 1954, oil and pencil on canvas, 30 x 25in. (76.2 x 63.5cm). Brooklyn Museum[1]
Born 1896[2]
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.[2]
Died 1983[2]
New York, New York, U.S.[2]
Nationality American[2]
Known for Painter, Journalist, Art critic[2]
Movement Neo-Plasticism[2]

Charmion von Wiegand (1896–1983) was an American journalist, abstract painter, and art critic. She was the daughter of Inez Royce and Karl Henry von Wiegand, the German-born journalist.[3]

Life and career

Von Wiegand was born in Chicago and grew up in Arizona, San Francisco, and Berlin, where she lived for three years as a teenager. When she returned to the United States, she attended Barnard College for a year and then transferred to Columbia University to study journalism, theater, and art history. She did not complete her bachelor's degree and thought she may become a playwright; at this time she also began to paint landscapes.

In 1929, she traveled to Moscow where she became a correspondent for the Universal Service of the Hearst Press. She returned to New York in 1932 and married communist activist and writer Joseph Freeman the same year[2][4] or in 1934.[5] She continued her work as an art critic, and in spring 1941 interviewed the Dutch artist Piet Mondrian. She became close friends with Mondrian, who influenced her to start creating abstract art. She became an associate member of the American Abstract Artists in 1941, exhibiting with them from 1948.

See also

Notes

  1. "The Ancestral Altar from I Ching". Brooklyn Museum. Retrieved 22 April 2010.
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 "Charmion Von Wiegand". Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved 22 April 2010.
  3. "Charmion von Wiegand (1896 — 1983) chronology". Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, LLC. Retrieved 14 December 2010.
  4. "Charmion von Wiegand (1896 — 1983)". Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, LLC. Retrieved 14 December 2010.
  5. Wald (p. 183.)

References

Further reading

External links