Isabelle Waldberg Les Brisants 1960

Biography

Born 1917
Died 1990
Nationality Swiss

Isabelle Waldberg was a Swiss artist who is best known for her sculptures. Born in Oberstammheim, she studied sculpture in Zurich before moving to Paris and briefly Italy to continue her studies. In Paris she encountered avant-garde artists including Andre Masson, Alberto Giacometti, and Patrick Waldberg who later became her husband. In 1941 she joined a group of Surrealist artists who were ‘in exile’ in New York. During this time she experimented further with Surrealism, but was increasingly drawn to the art of Eskimo and Native American communities. Working predominantly in bronze and fragile iron wire, her sculptures are abstract and have been referred to as ‘drawings in air’, while her later work from the 1950s onwards saw her return to plaster, a material she used in her early-career. Waldberg’s reputation grew steadily and she exhibited frequently and widely until her death in 1990.