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Sylvia Edwards

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Sylvia Edwards
Fragmented Joy, Water colour
Born(1937-01-30)30 January 1937
Boston, Massachusetts, US
Died25 October 2018(2018-10-25) (aged 81)
London, United Kingdom
NationalityNorth American
EducationMassachusetts College of Art
Known forpainting

Sylvia Anne Edwards[1] (30 January 1937 – 25 October 2018)[2] was an American abstract artist. Edwards held over thirty solo exhibitions in the US, Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa since her first commercial exhibition in 1975.

Early life

Sylvia Edwards was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Her father, Junius Griffiths-Edwards, was a music impresario. He hired the big bands of the 1940s, such as Harry James, Duke Ellington and Tommy Dorsey, and founded a magazine, Ballroom and Orchestra, a forerunner for DownBeat. Her mother, whose maiden name was Mailloux-Chabot, had French Canadian heritage. She encouraged Edwards to draw images of the world around her and instilled in her a love of colour.[3]

Edwards spent summers in a country house in Uxbridge, Massachusetts.

While at secondary school she attended special classes for artistically gifted children and was accepted at Massachusetts College of Art (University of Massachusetts), which she attended from 1954 to 1957. Her interest in abstract art was sparked by Lawrence Kupferman, a modernist painter who introduced his students to the work of Georges Braque and Piet Mondrian and the dynamics of cityscapes.

She left college to marry an Iranian student, Sadri Golestaneh, who was studying to become an electronic engineer. They remained in Boston to have their first daughter, Shirin, in 1958 and then moved to Philadelphia, where their second child, Nader, was born in 1960. In 1961 the family moved to Tehran, Iran.

Iran

Edwards spent fourteen years living in Iran, which had a profound influence on her artistic and personal development. She studied Iran's history, the impact it had on other civilizations, its arts and crafts. She also learned about the people and their views of life, and the Iranian appreciation of beauty left an impact on her.

After they moved from Tehran to Southern Iran, their third child, Leila was born in 1966. Her husband encouraged the building of a studio for her on the lower level of the house, and she began to rediscover her artistic passion.

Later life and death

Edwards moved to Switzerland before settling in London in 1977. She summered and painted in her studio on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. She resided in England until her death in 2018. [4]

Solo exhibitions

  • London, England, Grosvenor Gallery, 2003
  • London, England, The Chelsea Arts Club, 2000
  • Boca Grande, Florida, The Galleria, 2000
  • Falmouth, Massachusetts, Gallery Szent Gyorgi, 1998
  • Boca Grande, Florida, The Galleria, 1998
  • Oxford, England, CCA Gallery, 1996
  • Provincetown, Massachusetts, Sola Gallery, 1993
  • Vero Beach, Florida, Munson Gallery, 1992
  • Braunschweig, Germany, Jaeshke Gallery, 1991
  • Chatham, Massachusetts, Munson Gallery, 1991
  • Johannesburg, South Africa, Natalie Knight Gallery, 1991
  • Tokyo, Japan, Bankamura, 1991
  • Tokyo, Japan, Gallery K. Hyazaki Prefecture, 1991
  • Tokyo, Japan, Mitsukoshi Mihonbashi Branch, 1991
  • London, England, Berkley Square Gallery, 1991
  • Tokyo, Japan, Sony Plaza, 1991
  • Sarasota, Florida, The Salon Gallery, 1990
  • London, England, CCA Gallery, 1990
  • Singapore, Art Base Gallery, 1989
  • Tokyo, Japan, CCA Gallery, 1989
  • Osaka, Japan, The Nii Gallery, 1989
  • London, England, The Berkeley Square Gallery, 1988
  • Guernsey, Channel Isles, Coach House Gallery, 1986
  • London, England, Christopher Hull Gallery, 1985
  • London, England, Hamiltons Gallery, 1982
  • Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Morehead Planetarium (UNC), 1982
  • Boston, Massachusetts, Parkman House, 1982
  • Boston, Massachusetts, Boston City Hall, 1981
  • London, England, Hamiltons Gallery, 1980
  • Alexandria, Egypt, Museum of Fine Arts, 1980
  • Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, Old Sculpin Gallery, 1979
  • London, England, Belgrave Gallery, 1978
  • Geneva, Switzerland, CERN, 1977
  • Rolle, Switzerland, CH Gallery, 1976
  • Tehran, Iran, Iran American Society, 1975

Public collections

  • Tate Britain, London, United Kingdom[5]
  • Cape Museum of Fine Arts (Cape Cod), Dennis, Massachusetts
  • Museum of Fine Arts, Alexandria, Egypt
  • London Lighthouse, London, United Kingdom
  • Midwest Museum of American Art, Elkhart, Indiana

Selected criticism

Infinite Softness

"The works of Sylvia Edwards Golestaneh have an affinity with Japanese wood-cuts and the artist has brought to realization the innate character and possibilities of watercolour: flow of colours and lines in space, poetry of shapes and themes.
This gentleness seems to touch the world and transform it, even perpetuate it in the calm pastel hues and the satisfying and warm pulse of tints which remain pure and fresh when merged, especially when they embark on a dialogue of an intimate nature.
One sees elegant vases shooting forth delicate, flowering branches, villages and traditional structures, flowering spring landscapes or those of winter covered with their silent layer of snow.
In this calm painting the figurative becomes 'tachist' or even 'cubist' but always indistinct, nebulous, gently stirring.
These gentle country themes take, on occasion, directions where one may conjure up some sort of hidden frivolity, secret and introspective which introduces into this charming atmosphere of sincerity, several passionate touches which are the subtle spice of peace and serenity."

Jacques SIMON: Journal de Téhéran, April 1975

"Her flower paintings glow as if with inner light—taking on the living vibrancies"

Mel Gooding: Arts Review, 1988

"Each time Edwards gives her kaleidoscopic mind a shake, we get a splendidly lush yet pictorially ordered glimpse of chaos. Nothing in these paintings is encoded in a private language... Rather they are unaffected celebrations of the world in its upbeat mode."

Robin Duthy, 1988

References

  1. ^ Art Finders. "Sylvia Edwards", Art Finders
  2. ^ Sylvia Anne Edwards
  3. ^ Sylvia Edwards: A Monograph. "Sylvia Edwards: A Monograph.", Mel Gooding, David Elliott
  4. ^ "SYLVIA EDWARDS Obituary (1937 - 2018) - Boston, MA - Boston Globe". Legacy.com. Retrieved 2023-02-19.
  5. ^ "Sylvia Edwards born 1937". Tate.
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