Anne Wienholt (1920 – 2018) was born in New South Wales in 1920, attending East Sydney Technical College from 1938 through to 1941, where she was taught by William Dobell and Frank Medworth.
Wienholt was the recipient of the New South Wales Travelling Art Scholarship in 1944, which she used to travel to New York City, first studying at the Art Students League of New York with Yasuo Kuniyoshi, then at Atelier 17. In 1948, 1949, and 1950 she participated in the Brooklyn Museum’s National Print Annual Exhibition.
Wienholt challenged traditional gender roles in the 1950s and 60s, pursuing a serious art career while raising three children in the home she and her husband built in the Shawangunk Mountains in New York. During these years, Wienholt moved away from painting and began to work in clay, later turning to sculpting in bronze using the lost wax method. Wienholt participated and oversaw most foundry work, including finishing casts herself with patinas.
Winholt was influenced by a wide range of art practices and movements, from the European masters to the indigenous art of Australia, Papua New Guinea, Haiti, and Central America. Her bold sculpture forms have been described as creating a bridge between ‘realistic, human or animal figures and abstract, symbolic ones. Whether archetypal or humorous in its intent, each piece delivers the sheer force of weight and mass into form.’ Wienholt’s work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions in Sydney, New York, and San Francisco and has been acquired into the collections of the Brooklyn Museum and the National Gallery of Australia.
ANNE WIENHOLT
Untitled (nude figure) c1970
bronze [lost wax]
15 x 7.5 x 7.5 cm
Signed under base
$5,300
PROVENANCE: Private Collection Hobart
