# Sylvia Edwards

Sylvia Anne Edwards (January 30, 1937 – October 25, 2018) was an American abstract artist. Edwards first exhibited her work in 1975 and went on to feature in more than thirty solo exhibitions in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa during her lifetime.

## Biography

Sylvia Edwards was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Junius and Sylvia (née Mailloux) Edwards. Her father was a music promoter and manager. In the 1940s, he hired big bands such as Harry James, Duke Ellington, and Tommy Dorsey, and founded the magazine Ballroom and Orchestra. Edwards' mother encouraged her to draw and instilled in her a love for color and painting. Edwards spent her summers at a country house in Uxbridge, Massachusetts.
Edwards attended Massachusetts College of Art from 1954 to 1957, where she was influenced by Lawrence Kupferman, a Modernist painter who introduced his students to the work of Georges Braque and Piet Mondrian, and to the dynamics of cityscapes.
Edwards left college to marry Sadredin Golestaneh, and had their first daughter, Shirin, in 1958. In 1960, they moved to Philadelphia, where they had their second child, Nader. In 1961, the family relocated to Tehran, Iran. In 1966, Edwards gave birth to her third child, Leila, in Southern Iran.
In 1975, Edwards moved to Switzerland before settling in London in 1977. She spent her summers painting in her studio on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. She resided in England until she died in 2018.

## Education

Edwards studied at the Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, 1957; the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, 1958; and completed her postgraduate studies at the Modern Art Studies, London, 1980-1981.

## Solo exhibitions

* London, England, Grosvenor Gallery, 2003
* London, England, The Chelsea Arts Club, 2000
* Boca Grande, Florida, The Galleria, 2000
* Falmouth, Massachusetts, Gallery Szent Gyorgi, 1998
* Boca Grande, Florida, The Galleria, 1998
* Oxford, England, CCA Gallery, 1996
* Provincetown, Massachusetts, Sola Gallery, 1993
* Vero Beach, Florida, Munson Gallery, 1992
* Braunschweig, Germany, Jaeshke Gallery, 1991
* Chatham, Massachusetts, Munson Gallery, 1991
* Johannesburg, South Africa, Natalie Knight Gallery, 1991
* Tokyo, Japan, Bankamura, 1991
* Tokyo, Japan, Gallery K. Hyazaki Prefecture, 1991
* Tokyo, Japan, Mitsukoshi Mihonbashi Branch, 1991
* London, England, Berkley Square Gallery, 1991
* Tokyo, Japan, Sony Plaza, 1991
* Sarasota, Florida, The Salon Gallery, 1990
* London, England, CCA Gallery, 1990
* Singapore, Art Base Gallery, 1989
* Tokyo, Japan, CCA Gallery, 1989
* Osaka, Japan, The Nii Gallery, 1989
* London, England, The Berkeley Square Gallery, 1988
* Guernsey, Channel Isles, Coach House Gallery, 1986
* London, England, Christopher Hull Gallery, 1985
* London, England, Hamiltons Gallery, 1982
* Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Morehead Planetarium (UNC), 1982
* Boston, Massachusetts, Parkman House, 1982
* Boston, Massachusetts, Boston City Hall, 1981
* London, England, Hamiltons Gallery, 1980
* Alexandria, Egypt, Museum of Fine Arts, 1980
* Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, Old Sculpin Gallery, 1979
* London, England, Belgrave Gallery, 1978
* Geneva, Switzerland, CERN, 1977
* Rolle, Switzerland, CH Gallery, 1976
* Tehran, Iran, Iran American Society, 1975

## Public collections

* Tate Britain, London, United Kingdom
* Cape Museum of Fine Arts (Cape Cod), Dennis, Massachusetts
* Museum of Fine Arts, Alexandria, Egypt
* London Lighthouse, London, United Kingdom
* Midwest Museum of American Art, Elkhart, Indiana

## Selected criticism

Infinite Softness
    "The works of Sylvia Edwards Golestaneh have an affinity with Japanese wood-cuts and the artist has brought to realization the innate character and possibilities of watercolor: flow of colors and lines in space, the poetry of shapes and themes.
    This gentleness seems to touch the world and transform it, even perpetuate it in the calm pastel hues and the satisfying and warm pulse of tints which remain pure and fresh when merged, especially when they embark on a dialogue of an intimate nature.
    One sees elegant vases shooting forth delicate, flowering branches, villages and traditional structures, flowering spring landscapes or those of winter covered with their silent layer of snow.
    In this calm painting the figurative becomes 'tachist' or even 'cubist' but always indistinct, nebulous, gently stirring.
    These gentle country themes take, on occasion, directions where one may conjure up some sort of hidden frivolity, secret and introspective which introduces into this charming atmosphere of sincerity, several passionate touches which are the subtle spice of peace and serenity."
Jacques SIMON: Journal de Téhéran, April 1975
    "Her flower paintings glow as if with inner light—taking on the living vibrancies"
Mel Gooding: Arts Review, 1988
    "Each time Edwards gives her kaleidoscopic mind a shake, we get a splendidly lush yet pictorially ordered glimpse of chaos. Nothing in these paintings is encoded in a private language... Rather they are unaffected celebrations of the world in its upbeat mode."
Robin Duthy, 1988