New York,
1956

After studying art in Paris, Bucharest and Vienna, Hedda Sterne emigrated to the United States in 1941. Upon her arrival, Sterne’s work was included in the maiden exhibition of surrealism in the United States, First Papers of Surrealism (October 1942), curated by Marcel Duchamp and André Breton. In the fifties, she was a prominent member of the Irascibles, along with Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Clyfford Still, Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman, among others. In this innovative milieu, Sterne was a key figure in developing the language of what came to be known as Abstract Expressionism.