Bella Feldman

Bella Tabak Feldman (née Bella R. Tabak; 1930 – May 6, 2024) was an American sculptor. Her work addressed the themes of sexuality, war, and the persistent anxiety of the industrial age. Feldman was known for pioneering the use of glass with steel. Her work has affinities with Surrealism, Post-Minimalism, and the Feminist art movement, although she has no formal affiliation with these. She was a Professor Emeritus at the California College of the Arts. to a family of working-class Jewish immigrants from Poland. She grew up in the Bronx tenements. She attended The High School of Music & Art in Manhattan during World War II.

Students were required to visit museums and galleries as part of the curriculum. When Feldman was thirteen, she visited her first art museum, the Museum of Modern Art. There, she saw Meret Oppenheim's Object (1936), the fur-lined cup and saucer, and was struck by her strong psychological response to this work. Other early influences included Alberto Giacometti's The Palace at 4 am (1932) and the sculpture of David Smith. One of Feldman's earliest sculptures Warrior (1952) pays tribute to Giacometti. During the Holocaust, Feldman lost numerous family members who remained in Poland, an experience that helped shape her worldview. This includes her lifelong preoccupation with war, and the overwhelming effects of the military–industrial complex.

Feldman received a BA degree from Queens College, City University of New York. In 1971 she and her family moved to Uganda, East Africa on a grant from the E. L. Cabot Trust Fund at Harvard University. Feldman spent two years teaching art in Uganda prior to the genocidal war in that country. Upon her return to CCA, she faced gender discrimination and a threat to her job. Her successful fight to retain her position prompted her to later become an advocate for other women faculty, who she helped to achieve equity and job security.

Feldman was awarded an MA degree in 1973 from San Jose State University.