A leading mid-20th century Geometric Abstract painter, Charmion Von Wiegand was born in Chicago and attended Barnard College and the Columbia School of Journalism. She then worked as a newspaper reporter in New York City, being a correspondent for the Hearst newspapers in Moscow.

She returned to New York where she had become associated with the Avant Garde art movement and had started painting in 1926. By 1929, she was devoting herself full time to painting and to writing about art for national magazines. She married novelist Joseph Freeman.

She was a close friend of Piet Mondrian and until his death in 1944, worked with him on essays relating to his principles of abstract Neo-Plastic art. In fact, she wrote the first American published work about him. She was a member of the American Abstract Artists, a group formed to protest Social Realism, and served as President from 1950 to 1953.

After 1960, she became much more expressive or emotional in her work and moved away from her former tight grid painting of color squares. She exhibited regularly until her death in 1983.

Source: "American Women Artists" by Charlotte Streifer Rubinstein

In 1943, the artist and critic Charmion von Wiegand published her influential essay "The Meaning of Mondrian," the first critical consideration of Piet Mondrian's work published in the United States. Her numerous translations of Mondrian's writings into English and her intimate knowledge of Mondrian's working process and philosophies continue to be influential today, though largely unacknowledged. This paper will explore von Wiegand's involvement in promoting and explaining Mondrian's ideas in the United States and the work of his US followers, and, most importantly, her own contributions to expanding and extending the ideas of Neo-Plasticism through her own work as a painter.

A lecture to be presented on January 26, 2011 at the conference Seminario Patricia Phelps de Cisneros in Caracas, Venezuela by Mary Kate O'Hare, Associate Curator of American Art at The Newark Museum.

As a leading artist in the abstract Neo-Plastic field, Charmion von Wiegand is most notably recognized for her flat planes, preoccupation with simple colors and her fragmented rectilinear constructions. She was heavily influenced by Piet Mondrian and worked with him developing his artistic theories, which culminated in her publishing the first American work about Mondrian.

She was an active member of the American Abstract Artists, a group whose intent was to promote and increase the understanding by the general public of the abstract and non-objective art world. In addition to her career as an artist, von Wiegand wrote for numerous art magazines.

Her work resides in the permanent collections of the Albright-Knox Gallery, the Neuberger Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art and several other institutional and private collections.

© 2008 Levis Fine Art, Inc.

Charmion von Wiegand
1900-1983

Education:
Barnard College
Columbia University

Awards:
Hassan Speicher Fund Purchase, American Academy of Arts and Letters
Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, 1980
National Women's Caucus for Art Conference, New York, 1982

Exhibitions:
Rose Fried Gallery, New York, NY, 1942 (solo)
The Women, Art of this Century, New York, NY, 1945
American Abstract Artist Exhibition, Riverside Museum, New York, 1947
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New york, NY, 1952
Zoe Dusanne Gallery, New York, NY, 1954 (solo)
John Heller Gallery, New York, NY, 1956 (solo)
Howard Wise Gallery, New York, NY, 1961 (solo)
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, 1962
Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, 1962
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL, 1973
Retrospective, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, 1973
Paris-New York, Musee National d'Arte Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France, 1977
Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach, FL, 1982
Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, 1985
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, 1992
Joseloff Gallery, Hartford Art School, University of Hartford, West Hartford, CT,
1993 (solo)
Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York, NY, 1996
Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, CA, 1998

Collections:
Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY
The Archer M. Huntington Art Museum, University of Texas, Austin, TX
Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL
Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas, Austin, TX
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA
Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
The Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens, Jacksonville, FL
Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, IA
Grey Art Gallery, New York University, New York, NY
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum of Art, New York, NY
Herbert F. Johnson Museum, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA
Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington,
DC
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI
The Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ
Mt. Holyoke College Art Museum, South Hadley, MA
The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC
National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
Palmer Art Museum, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA
The Newark Museum, Newark, NJ
Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA
The Snite Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN
Springfield Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, MA
Weatherspoon Art Gallery, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, NC
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY