Harold Ambellan

Harold Ambellan (USA Buffalo 1912-2006 Arles France) is an American sculptor belonging to the Post War Ecole de Paris. Although friend with artists who followed the Abstract Expressionism trend like Jackson Pollock, de Kooning, Rothko, de Ribera, and belonged to the Federal Art Project, like him, Ambellan, very independent, followed his own track in a figurative style with a cubist hint focused mainly on the human body, in his sculpture, drawings and paintings. If he experimented the worse and the best of the XXth Century, he will remain always sincere. This very handsome and powerful man, with a pacific temper, will remain always like his art, without any artificial or theorical posture. In the 40's he gets married in New York with the American Elisabeth Higgins. With his second wife Mona, he decides to flee to Europe in 1954, but they divorce once in Paris. He settles several years as a sculptor in Paris Montparnasse district, and marries for the third times with Esther Rachel. In 1962, they move to Antibes where he opens his studio opened to the public as an art gallery. In 1978, he divorces and settles in Arles where he will stay until his death in 2006. Harold Ambellan is the father of two daughters. 

Born in a middle-class family, his father works in the construction business as a painter, they live in Buffalo, in New York state. He studies art and sculpture. During the Great Depression he is finishing High School and travels vainly in order to find work. Back to his family, he devotes his days to sculpture and wins the Chaloner Foundation Prize, with a scholarship allowing him to finance his settlement in New York City and his studies at the Art Students League. In 1932 he lives in Greenwich Village and on 31 East 21st Street.

He gets involved into Labor Unions for the sake of artists, participates to pacific "sit-ins", and becomes one of the founders of the "New York Artists Union", later on CIO. 

As soon as 1935 he is engaged into the Federal Art Project (FPA) of the Franklin Roosevelt New Deal Agency, the WPA (1935-1943). With his numerous exhibitions and 200 000 works of art, it will give the same salary to thousand artists and gives rise to the New York Art School, and the flourishing New York Art Market, dethroning the European art market and the First Ecole de Paris in the beginning of the 20th Century. 

In 1938, Ambellan has an exhibition in MOMA, Museum of Modern Art of New York, in "Subway Art". In 1939, the Wildenstein Gallery of New York shows his art. In 1940, he is the cofounder of the "United Sculptors of America", or "Sculptors Guild", in 1941 he is elected as President. The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York shows his art as well as the Fine Arts Academy of Philadelphia. During World War II, he welcomes and helps the sculptors Lipchitz and Zadkine seeking a shelter in New-York, as European refugees. Zadkine teaches few classes at the Arts Students League. 

In 1944, like his two brothers, he is enrolled into the US Navy and they take part to the D-Day in Normandy. 

In 1945, back to New-York, he teaches sculpture and design at the Workshop. 

But as soon as 1947, he is blacklisted by the "Un-American Activities Committee". Senaror McCarthy, in a Cold War context, presides it from 1953 to 1954. 

But after the suicide of friends, sculptors, tracked without reason, if Charlie Chaplin finds a shelter in Switzerland, Harold Ambellan flees to France in 1954 with his second wife and will remain in France forever, until his death in 2006. Reattu Museum in Arles, has a collection of his art. 

Lise Cormery meets him in 1988, thanks to his daughter Zoé who pleads to obtain an exhibition for his sculptures and gives her Ambellan's bronze sculptures to show during her first visit. While Harold Ambellan prepares with Lise Cormery his 1989 and 1990 Solo Show in her Paris Gallery (Art et Communication 6, rue de Lanneau). He confides her his memories, his life in the USA, the "FPA Federal Art Project" and his forced exile to France. She writes on Ambellan and the FPA, in a socio-political essay published by the Denis Diderot University. But, in spite of long years passing by since the 50's, Harold Ambellan remained very hurt and frightened by the Whitch Hunt, the hearings of the 1947 "Un-American Activities Committee", and Senaror McCarthy's trials of the 50's. In spite of the fact, he was part of the D-Day in Normandy with the US Navy, he felt rejected and still susceptible of political harassment in the United States. Although a good friend with Lise Cormery, he resented her for mentioning in his biography these historical facts he had to suffer while he was just an apolitical child of the New Deal.

PARIS ART OLYMPIADS

In 1991 and 1992, under the High Patronage of French President Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac, Mayor of Paris, Ambellan was selected to represent the United States for the Art Olympiads organized by Lise Cormery Gallery for the CNOSF, French Olympic Committee. This international event was following the famous 1988 Art Olympiads in Seoul, South Korea, where a Museum of monumental sculptures in open air and a Museum of International paintings was created for the world competition, in order to invite and show the art of major international artists of the 20th century.

SOLO SHOWS 1939 Wildenstein Gallery, New York. 1961 Galerie Jean Camoin, Paris. 1971 Schneider Gallery, Rome. 1976 Solingen Museum, Germany. 1978 1982 Van Remmen Gallery, Solingen 1989 1990 Galerie Lise Cormery, Art et Com, Paris.

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS Willert Park Courts & Zoo, Buffalo, New York, Brooklyn College, New York. Nathan Cummings, Chicago, Etats-Unis. Réattu Museum, Arles, France. PUBLISHINGS 1989 1990 1991 Contemporary Art Guide, L'Agend'ART, Lise Cormery Publishing, Paris, France. VIDEOCONFERENCE PARIS Diderot UNIVERSITY 2009 Site on RAP University Network and YouTube "Lise Cormery & Harold Ambellan ROOSEVELT'S FEDERAL ART PROJECT." Guest Zoé AMBELLAN, daughter of Harold Ambellan.