ABOUT CLEO HARTWIG
Acclaimed by art historian Eleanor Munro in the documentary, Women of the First Wave: Elders of the Century, along with artists Dorothy Dehner and Minna Citron, Cleo Hartwig was a forceful advocate for women artists and the recipient of 11 awards from the National Association of Women Artists. Charlotte Rubinstein's American Women Artists situated Hartwig as part of the “New York School." The New York Times called Hartwig a “classicist . . . infusing her smoothly carved figures with warm human values that lie just beneath the surface of the stone.” Pulitzer Prize winning art critic Emily Genauer termed Hartwig's work, "first class," and "poetic," likening a classic Hartwig bird form to Brancusi in its "pure" contours.
Hartwig's work has been exhibited at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the LA County Museum of Art, and numerous venues in the U.S. and abroad. Her work is in the permanent collections of such museums as the Smithsonian Institution, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and is part of many private collections.
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Hartwig belongs to the tradition of direct carvers (taille directe) who carved straight into their materials, without the use of intermediary steps. Sculptor Henry Moore once observed, “To me, carving direct became a religion. It was something to be believed in.” Hartwig’s inspiration always started with surfaces—the texture, shape, veining, or color of a stone—but her particular genius lay in capturing the mystery beneath the surface, turning stone into poetry.
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American Artist Magazine described Hartwig's, “unhurried process of reduction with bush hammers, chisels, and rasps. She prefers this equipment to power tools which, because of their mechanical impetus, are alien to contemplation." Indeed, there is a zen-like calm to Hartwig’s work, each piece bearing testimony to her considered creative approach.
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Hartwig often elevated the fragile—a flower, an insect—drawing on a wide stylistic palette of cubism, abstraction, augmentation, and incised geometrical shapes to unlock her subjects. As Sculpture Review observed, “What Georgia O’Keefe accomplished by magnifying a subject, examining its essence, and painting it using flowing line and shape, Hartwig did with stone, wood, terracotta, and bronze.”
ABOVE: Hartwig working on "Family Group" (1945), her 8-ft high relief for the facade of the Continental Companies building
MUSEUM & INSTITUTIONAL COLLECTIONS
Smithsonian Institution
National Museum of Women in the Arts
Zimmerli Art Museum (Rutgers University)
Newark Museum, NJ
Montclair Art Museum, NJ
National Academy of Design
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Brookgreen Gardens,, SC
Detroit Institute of Arts
Southern Vermont Art Center
International Museum, Sofia, Bulgaria
All Faiths Memorial Tower (now George Washington
Memorial Park), NJ
Lenox Hill Hospital, NY
Mount Holyoke College, MA
State University of New York at Oswego
Winkel Sculpture Court, SUNY Plattsburgh, NY
Western Michigan University
RIGHT: "Family Group," on the Continental Companies building at 76 Williams St. in lower Manhattan
ABOVE: Cleo Hartwig carving wood, 1948
Cleo Hartwig (1907-1988)
Born in Michigan, Hartwig was always drawn to the mysteries of the natural world. As a young girl she led nature tours of plant and animal life, a passion which was to become a seminal force in her art. Hartwig spent two summers studying at the Chicago Institute of Art, before graduating with an A.B. from Western Michigan University in 1932. She then traveled widely, studying art in Poland, Hungary, Rumania, Germany, France, and Mexico.
In 1934, Hartwig moved to New York City, determined to forge a career as a professional sculptor. She began studying direct-stone carving at The New School with Jose de Creeft, and clay modeling and plaster casting at the Clay Club Sculpture Center. She soon settled at her lifelong home in Patchin Place—a mews in the heart of Greenwich Village, where she lived among fellow artists such as the poet e.e. cummings and writer Djuna Barnes. Yearly exhibits followed with the National Association of Women Artists, the New York Society of Women Artists, Sculptors Guild, National Sculpture Society, New York Society of Ceramic Artists, and Audubon Artists.
“What Georgia O’Keefe accomplished by magnifying a subject, examining its essence, and painting it using flowing line and shape, Hartwig did with stone, wood, terracotta, and bronze.”
--Sculpture Review
FERN (1981), Collection Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of American Art
During World War II Hartwig did drafting work for Bell Telephone Laboratories (1942-45) and technical illustrating for the Jordanoff Aviation Corp (1943-45). During those years she also had her first solo show at the Clay Club in New York, bringing together her talents as a sculptor, naturalist, and ceramist. The show included 29 works, ranging from abstract, decorative, and figurative pieces to nature forms. In 1945 Hartwig won the National Association of Women Artists' Anna Hyatt Huntington Prize. That same year she also became a sculpture instructor at Cooper Union in New York and the Montclair Art Museum in New Jersey. In addition, she completed an important work for the architect Kenneth B. Norton: a "Family Group" for the Continental Casualties Building on Williams St. in downtown Manhattan. For that commission Hartwig created an 8-foot-high bas-relief of a mother, father, and child, which was cast in aluminum and installed over the entrance to the building. By 1947 Hartwig presented a second solo show, featuring 27 works, including her signature mix of animal and figurative pieces. By then her works were in the collections of the Newark Museum and Detroit Institute of Arts, and had been shown at such venues as the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Denver Art Museum, Chicago Art Institute, Nebraska Art Association, and National Academy.
In 1951 Hartwig was commissioned, along with other notable women artists, to create sculpture for the S.S. United States, resulting in, “Wild Ducks,” two terra cotta pieces. That same year she married the Russian sculptor, Vincent Glinsky, and their son, Albert Glinsky, was born the following year. The uniquely compatible artistic partnership of Hartwig and Glinsky was documented by Enid Bell in a feature article for American Artists magazine.
The 1960s saw Hartwig's work exhibited in unique venues such as the 1964 New York World's Fair and outdoor shows at Bryant Park in midtown Manhattan, and she created a large figure, “Homeward Spirit,” on commission from the All-Faith’s Memorial Park in New Jersey. Reproductions of her works were sold by Sculpture Collectors, Collectors Guild, and Alva Museum Replicas, which also commissioned her to create new works for reproduction.
In 1971 Hartwig was elected an academician of the National Academy of Design, the ultimate mark of professional recognition by one of the country’s oldest and most respected art academies. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s she continued to exhibit regularly in group shows, in addition to solo exhibitions at the Montclair Art Museum (NJ), Harmon-Meek Gallery (FL), the Sculpture Center, and SUNY Plattsburgh. ​
Hartwig's 1988 New York Times obituary noted her tireless advocacy for fellow artists: "She was known among her colleagues as a woman who shunned the limelight herself but was a fervid supporter of other artists' careers." Her work with arts organizations included:
*Audubon Artists: Vice President for Sculpture, Exhibition Committee
*National Association of Women Artists: 1st Vice President, 1976; Exhibition Committee Chair, 1976
*Sculptors Guild: Exec. Director (1976); Exec. Board Member, Exec. Vice-Pres.
*National Sculpture Review: Editorial Board
*National Sculpture Society: Exhibition Committee Chairman, Membership Committee, Member of Council
*Sculpture Center: Council, Board of Trustees; Vice Pres. (1976-77)
*National Academy of Design: School Committee; Chairman of Sculptors Invitation Committee for Annual Exhibitions
*Board of Education: City of New York (1963-71), Sculpture representative
*NYC Art Commission: Sculptor representative, 1971
*Fine Arts Federation of New York, Professional Advisor, 1972 Family Court Building sculpture competition
*New York Society of Women Artists: Officer
*Society of Animal Artists: Membership Jury
*New York Society of Ceramic Artists: Sculpture Jury