Edna Hibel
Who is Edna Hibel?
For over 40 years, Edna Hibel has been referred to as America’s best loved and most versatile artist, and best colorist. Since being commissioned by the Foundation of the U.S. National Archives in 1995 to commemorate 75 years of women receiving the universal right to vote, Hibel is now acclaimed the “Heart and Conscience of America.” when Ms. Lucy Baines Johnson, of the U.S. National Archives described her as such.
Born in 1917 to Abraham and Lena Hibel of Boston, Massachusetts, Miss Hibel grew up in the Boston area. She was educated at Brookline High School where she met her future husband, Theodore Plotkin. She spent many summers at the shore in Hull, Massachusetts and in Maine studying watercolor painting. She began painting at the age of 9 in elementary school. In addition to art, Miss Hibel was very proficient in tennis and she had a wide circle of friends many with whom she still stays current by telephone.
Edna Hibel was educated at the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts, from 1935-39, and was a special graduate student later. In 1942, she was honored with the Sturtevant Traveling Fellowship to Mexico.
Edna began “pulling” stone lithographs in 1966 in Boston and then moved to work in a fourth generation ‘atelier” in Zurich in 1970 and she still works in Switzerland. Lithography is a drawing medium and it is especially suited to her draftsmanship and exquisite control over “the line.” She innovated in creating works with up to 32 stones (or colors) on paper, silk, wood veneer and encouraged her porcelain manufacturers to allow her to create color separations with stone lithography which were transferred in a “secret” complicated process onto Bavarian hard paste porcelain. These works are now called lithographs on porcelain. Ms. Hibel has created the “Arte Ovale” series, and various plaques with this technique. With both lithographs on paper and on other materials, she often segments her editions of lithographs by colors, papers or the use of gold. Edna wrote a statement about lithography in her early years which applies to more recent works. Her husband of 67 years has written a statement about her philosophy which admirers may value. Edna working in Zurich.
Today Edna paints each day in her studio at home beginning early in the morning and hand enhances her original stone lithographs, serigraphs and giclee with pastels, oil paint, gold leaf, pencil, ink, conte crayon and charcoal. She travels for special exhibits to promote the Hibel Museum of Art and to join the Edna Hibel Society on overseas trips. She brings home new creations from almost every trip. She normally works in oil paint. However, she is also working in watercolors again on a limited basis since she had mastered the techniques as a young person. The Hibel Museum of Art has received a wonderful collection of watercolors from the 1930′s and 1940′s which confirms her master watercolor artist status.
What has Edna Hibel Accomplished?
In 2000, Edna was asked to create a painting to commemorate the 200th Anniversary of the White House. The painting called “The Heart and Conscience of America” was unveiled at the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D. C. that June.
Edna was honored with theLeonardo da Vinci World Award of Arts from Rector Gispen of Utrecht Universityon November 21, 2001. The prestigious International Art award has been granted once every three years since 1980. Ms Hibel has been cited for her innovations in artistic methods (especially in original stone lithography and porcelain ) and her contribution to art education. The World Cultural Council has appointed 100 members from five continents which jury the art prize. They also grant every two to three years an Einstein science prize and an education prize. Previous art recipients include Robert Rauschenberg, and most recently a Polish artist. The first art prize was awarded to the City of Athens, Greece. The ceremony took place in the most historic room at Utrecht University, the Hall in which 350 years before the country of The Netherlands was formed.
Most recently, National Women’s History Month 2008 Honoree Edna Hibel was honored in 2007 by the League of American Pen Womenin Washington, D.C with an exhibit and proclamation by the mayor of Washington, D.C. and featured on the Legends and Legacies program on WPBF-TV, affiliate Channel 25 in Palm Beach County Florida.
