Weschler, Anita

Sculptor, painter; New York, N.Y. Born 1903. Died 2000.

From the description of Anita Weschler papers, 1938-1998. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 122515052

Anita Weschler (1903-2000) was an American sculptor, painter, interior decorator, poet, and author. Born in New York, the daughter of J. Charles and Hulda Mayer Weschler, she studied in New York City at the Horace Mann School and studied art at the Parsons School of Design, the Art Students League under William Zorach and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts with Albert Laessle. In 1928 she married Herbert E. Solomon and most of her career was spent at Long Hill, their home/studio in Erwinna, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. She also kept an apartment in New York and in the early 1980's, after selling Long Hill, she relocated there permanently.

Miss Weschler's sculpture has been exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Chicago Art Institute, the Pennsylvania Academy of Art, the Carnegie Institute of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art and other museums and galleries throughout the United States. Her work is represented in permanent collections of the Whitney Museum, the Norfolk Museum and many others as well as in private collections. She has had fourteen one man shows, five one man travelling shows and has been represented in ten group travelling shows. Her translucencies, paintings in fibre glass, were exhibited at the Wellons Gallery in 1956. She was a member of the Bucks County Art Alliance and the National Association of Women Artists; like many of her fellow artists, she also worked with the government's Federal Arts Project during the Depression (one example of her work is a terra cotta relief created for the Post Office in Elkin, NC).

Awards to Miss Weschler include commissions for sculpture from the United States Post Office, and prizes at the Corcoran Gallery, San Francisco Museum and the American Federation of Arts Travelling Show. She has been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony, Peterboro, New Hampshire, and the Yaddo Foundation, Saratoga Springs, New York. Miss Weschler is a member of the Architectural League, Sculptor's Guild, National Association of Women Artists and Federation of Modern Painters and Sculptors.

Articles by Miss Weschler have appeared in various art magazines and she is the author of a book of poetry, Nightshade .

One of her more well-known pieces, and one of the first-ever sculptural uses of fiberglass, is The Humanist, composed of fiberglass, bonded bronze and plastic resins. The Humanist, a standing figure with outstretched hands embodying the ideal secular humanist, was exhibited at the Guggenheim's outdoor sculpture garden in 1955 and eventually became the property of noted activist, writer and humanist Warren Allen Smith. Smith donated the sculpture to the Institute for Humanist Studies (IHS) in 2005, and it now graces the entrance of IHS headquarters in Albany, New York.

From the guide to the Anita Weschler Papers, 1902-1989, 1924-1960, (Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries)