Danseuse / Dancer, 1970
Harold Ambellan

Exhibition at the Paris Arts Olympiad, 1991-1992

In her book, "The Art of the Post-War School of Paris (1945-1999)", published by Michelangelo Publications, Paris, in 2020, Lise Cormery writes her biography which can also be read on her gallery's website on Artsper.

"Harold Ambellan (USA Buffalo 1912-2006 Arles France) Although friends with the artists Jackson Pollock, de Kooning, Rothko, de Ribera, who benefited like him from the Federal Art Project, and became famous by following the current of Abstract Expressionism, Ambellan, resolutely independent, remained faithful to a figuration close to cubism focused on the human, mainly feminine, in his sculpture, his drawings and paintings.

If Ambellan experiences the best and the worst of the 20th century, it will always be in sincerity. This very handsome man with an elegant and imposing stature, but with a benevolent character, will emerge from it enhanced, like his work, which, without artifice, goes to the essential, appeased, soothing too.

He married three times. In the early 1940s he married Elisabeth Higgins, an American, in New York. With Mona, his second American wife, he decided to leave for Europe in 1954, but divorced once in Paris.

Having worked as a sculptor in Montparnasse for several years, he married Esther Rachel. In 1962, he moved to Antibes where he opened his gallery. When he divorced his third wife in 1978, he moved to the city of Arles where he lived until his death. Harold Ambellan is the father of two daughters.

Born into a modest family, his father was an upholsterer and painter in the building trade, he lived in Buffalo, New York. There he studied art and sculpture. During the Great Depression, like many of his contemporaries, he headed to Florida in search of work, in vain, and returned to his family. He continued sculpting and won the Chaloner Foundation Award, a scholarship that funded his move to New York and his studies at the Art Students League. By 1932 he was living in Greenwich Village and at 31 East 21st Street.

AMBELLAN became involved in trade unionism, took part in sit-ins and became one of the founding members of the radical union "New York Artists Union", the future International Trade Union Confederation, CIO.

1935 FPA FEDERAL ART PROJECT BY ROOSEVELT

From 1935 he was part of the Federal Art Project (FPA) of Franklin Roosevelt's NEW DEAL Agency, the WPA (1935-1943). With its multiple exhibitions and 200,000 creations of works of art, the FPA fed artists with the same salary to get out of the Great Depression and gave rise to the New York School which would dethrone the European School and the first School of Paris of the early 20th century.

1938 MOMA AND METROPOLITANT MUSEUM OF NEW YORK

In 1938 Ambellan exhibited at the MOMA, Museum of Modern Art of New York, for "Subway Art". In 1939, the Wildenstein Gallery in New York exhibited him. In 1940, co-founder of the union "United Sculptors of America", or "Sculptors Guild", he became its president in 1941 and exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, as well as at the Fine Arts Academy in Philadelphia. During the War of 1939-1945 he welcomed and helped two refugees from France, the great sculptors Lipchitz and Zadkine who were fleeing Nazism. Zadkine taught at the Art Students League of New York.

In 1944, like his two brothers, he was enlisted in the US Navy for the landing in France.

1950 1954 MC CARTHY'S BLACKLIST "Red Scare"

But as early as 1947, Harold Ambellan's name was included in the "Black List" of the "Un-American Activities Committee", given his union involvement, his membership in the "American Artists Congress" and "The Artists' Front to Win the War".

Ambellan soon found himself hunted during this policy of "Witch Hunt", amplified by the investiture of Senator McCarthy who, in the context of the Cold War in the 1950s, denounced the infiltration of communist agents in the United States and opened a series of trials for high treason against many innocent artists, children of the New Deal.

From 1953 to 1954, the Commission chaired by McCarthy would never stop tracking down potential communist agents or activists in the United States, exacerbating the policy initiated by the "Un-American Activities Committee", initially focused on the world of cinematographic art and then the Fine Arts. This is how Charlie Chaplin went into exile in Switzerland and Harold Ambellan in France.

After the suicide of sculptor friends, harassed by the "political correctness" of the time, Harold Ambellan fled to France in 1954 and went into exile there forever. First in Paris, then Arles, until his death in 2006.

1988 Permanent exhibition Galerie Lise Cormery

Lise Cormery met him in 1988, thanks to her daughter Zoé who entrusted her with her sculptures. For her personal exhibition in 1989 at her Gallery (Art et Communication, 6, rue de Lanneau, Paris), she wrote about Harold Ambellan, his life, his work and the "FPA Federal Art Project", in a thesis and a sociopolitical book published by the University of Paris Cité Diderot.

If her goal is to open up avenues in France like the New Deal, she hopes to heal Ambellan's still-raw wounds and thus restore his confidence. But it will be in vain, because France from "1984" will sink into an artistic No Man's Land and lose its international artistic aura. As for Paris, which was the City of Light, it will soon become the City of Dust despite the media being all subsidized.

However, despite the time that had passed, Harold Ambellan in the 1990s was still very affected by McCarthyism and despite his friendship with Lise Cormery, he reproached her with visible apprehension for mentioning it in his biography, because he was still haunted by the fear of possible political reprisals from the United States.

In a peaceful burst of passive resistance, Ambellan had exiled himself in France, forever. He would not dare to return there until much later, in the twilight of his life.

ARTS OLYMPICS In 1991 and 1992

During the international events under the aegis of President Mitterrand and the Mayor of Paris, Jacques Chirac, Harold Ambellan was selected to represent the United States at the Olympic Arts Games organized by the Galerie Lise Cormery, for the CNOSF, French National Olympic and Sports Committee, on the occasion of the 1992 Olympic Games in France. This international event followed the Olympic Arts Games in Seoul where the city founded for this competition a Museum of International Paintings and an open-air Museum of Monumental Sculptures, the SOMA with monumental sculptures by guest artists from around the world who came to create their works on site, exhibit and represent 20th century art.

AMBELLAN SOLO SHOWS

1939 Wildenstein Gallery, New York. 1961 Jean Camoin Gallery, Paris. 1971 Schneider Gallery, Rome 1976 Solingen Museum, Germany. 1978 1982 Van Remmen Gallery, Solingen 1989 1990 2006 Galerie Lise Cormery, Art et Communication, Paris.

AMBELLAN PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

Willert Park Courts & Zoo, Buffalo. New York. Brooklyn College, New York. Nathan Cummings, Chicago, United States. Réattu Museum, Former Grand Priory of Malta, Museum of Fine and Contemporary Art of the City of 'Arles, France.

EDITIONS 1989 1990 1991 Guide to Contemporary Art, L'Agend'ART, Editions Lise Cormery. 1991 to 1999 FAIR FIAC SAGA, Grand Palais, With Galerie Lise Cormery Paris.

VIDEO CONFERENCE UNIVERSITY PARIS 2009 University Paris Cité Diderot. RAP Site Parisian Academic Network & YouTube Site "Lise CORMERY & Harold AMBELLAN Sculpture ROOSEVELT'S FEDERAL ART PROJECT." Guest Zoé Ambellan, daughter of Harold Ambellan.

REATTU MUSEUM, Arles

If the Musée Réattu in the city of Arles now houses a collection of his works, the FDA of Franklin Roosevelt which enriched America and created the International and Museum Market of American Art and the Olympics of the Arts of Seoul which have enriched South Korea and created its International and Museum Market, were not followed by politicians in France, except for the Arts Olympiads of 1991 and 1992 which we owe to the exclusive initiative of the CNOSF French National Olympic and Sports Committee, and not to the IOC or the Ministry of Culture, because since the 70s, the French international and museum market has shrunk, like Peau de Chagrin. » End of excerpt from « The Art of the Post-War School of Paris (1945-1999)”, by Lise Cormery.