Jane Teller
Jane Teller (July 5, 1911 — December 23, 1990) was an American printmaker and sculptor.
Early life and education
Jane Simon was born in 1911, in Rochester, New York. Simon attended Rochester Institute of Technology and Skidmore College, and earned a bachelor's degree from Barnard College in 1933. She pursued further art studies through Works Project Administration classes in New York City, and in classes with Aaron J. Goodelman, Karl Nielson, and Ibram Lassaw.[1]
Career
Jane Teller taught sculpture at Princeton University in the 1960s, and exhibited her sculptures through the 1980s. "The strong consistency of Mrs. Teller's vision," noted a New York Times reviewer, "is expressed through a few primary forms that recur with many variations. Cylinders and circles, always referring to an organic rather than a geometric form, are at the core of many pieces."[2] Another Times reviewer, William Zimmer, assured readers that Teller was "practically an institution in New Jersey," though her work was not so well known beyond the Northeast during her lifetime.[3]
Teller won the Mary and Gustave Kellner Prize from the National Association of Women Artists in 1960, the Sculpture Prize from the Philadelphia Art Alliance in 1966, and a Women's Caucus for Art Lifetime Achievement Award in 1988.[4]
Personal life and legacy
Jane Simon married author Walter Teller; together they had four sons. They lived on a farm at Plumsteadville, Pennsylvania, and in Lahaska, Pennsylvania, before settling in Princeton, New Jersey. One of her sons married film director Claudia Weill.[5]
Teller died in 1990. Her papers are part of the research collection at the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.[6] Her sculptures can be seen at Temple Judea in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, at Princeton's Unitarian Church, at Princeton University Art Museum,[7] and in the collection of the James A. Michener Art Museum.[8] Her family provided funding in her memory, for an exhibit on women printmakers by the Arts Council of Princeton in early 2015.[9]
Selected exhibition catalogs
- Jane Teller: Retrospective (Schick Art Gallery, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs NY, October 9—November 2, 1986).
- Jane Teller: Powerful Presences/Tender Connections: A Retrospective Exhibition of Sculptures and Drawings (Noyes Museum, Oceanville NY, September 24—December 13, 1987).
- Art, Age, and the River: Jane Teller (Princeton NJ 1991).
References
- ^ "Jane Simon Teller," in Jules Heller and Nancy G. Heller, North American Women Artists of the Twentieth Century: A Biographical Dictionary (Routledge 2013): 541. ISBN 9781135638825
- ^ Patricia Malarcher, "Crafts," New York Times (March 28, 1982): NJ10.
- ^ William Zimmer, "A Comprehensive Look at Cosmic Unity in Wood," New York Times (May 10, 1987): NJ24.
- ^ Virginia Watson-Jones, Contemporary American Women Sculptors (Oryx 1986): 578. ISBN 0897741390
- ^ "W. S. Teller Wed to Claudia Weill," New York Times (July 15, 1985).
- ^ Archives of American Art. "Summary of the Jane Teller papers, 1911-1991 - Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution". si.edu. Retrieved 11 May 2015.
- ^ "Jane Teller - Princeton University Art Museum". princeton.edu. Retrieved 11 May 2015.
- ^ "Jane S. Teller -- Bucks County Artists -- Michener Art Museum". michenermuseum.org. Retrieved 11 May 2015.
- ^ "Concentric Circles - Arts Council of Princeton". artscouncilofprinceton.org. Retrieved 11 May 2015.
- American women printmakers
- American women sculptors
- 20th-century American sculptors
- People from Rochester, New York
- Artists from New York
- Rochester Institute of Technology alumni
- Skidmore College alumni
- Barnard College alumni
- Princeton University faculty
- 1911 births
- 1990 deaths
- 20th-century women artists
- 20th-century American printmakers