Sylvia Edwards

Sylvia Edwards
Sylvia Anne Edwards (30 January 1937 – 25 October 2018) was an American abstract artist. Edwards held her first commercial exhibition in 1975, and had over thirty solo exhibitions in the US, Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa during her lifetime.
Biography
Sylvia Edwards was born in Boston, Massachusetts to Sylvia (née Mailloux) and Junius Edwards. Her father was a music impresario. In the 1940s, he hired big bands such as Harry James, Duke Ellington, and Tommy Dorsey, and founded a magazine, Ballroom and Orchestra, a forerunner for DownBeat. Edwards' mother encouraged her to draw images of the world around her and instilled in her a love of color. Edwards spent summers in a country house in Uxbridge, Massachusetts.
During high school, she attended special classes for artistically gifted students and was accepted at Massachusetts College of Art, which she attended from 1954 to 1957. Her interest in abstract art was sparked by Lawrence Kupferman, a modernist painter who introduced his students to the work of Georges Braque and Piet Mondrian and the dynamics of cityscapes.
She left college to marry an Iranian student, Sadredin Golestaneh, who was studying to become an electronic engineer. Their first daughter, Shirin, was born in 1958. They then moved to Philadelphia, where their second child, Nader, was born in 1960. In 1961, the family moved to Tehran, Iran.
Edwards spent fourteen years living in Iran, which had a profound influence on her artistic and personal development. She studied Iran's history, the impact it had on other civilizations, and its arts and crafts. She also learned about the people and their views of life, and the Iranian appreciation of beauty left an impact on her.
Her third child, Leila, was born in 1966 in Southern Iran. Edwards' husband encouraged the building of a studio for her on the lower level of their house, and she began to rediscover her artistic passion.
Edwards moved to Switzerland in 1975, before settling in London in 1977. She summered and painted in her studio on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. She resided in England until her death in 2018.
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 watercolour: flow of colours and lines in space, 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
References
External links
Official Website
1937 births
2018 deaths
American abstract artists
Massachusetts College of Art and Design alumni
Artists from Boston