Eleanor Himmelfarb

Eleanor Gorecki Himmelfarb (August 16, 1910 – June 16, 2009) was an American artist, teacher and conservationist known for semi-abstract paintings that reference the landscape and human figure, and for her work protecting woodlands in DuPage County, Illinois. She studied art history and design at the University of Chicago, natural history at the Morton Arboretum, and fine art at the Art Institute of Chicago and University of Illinois at Chicago. Critics characterize Himmelfarb as a modernist, who explored her subjects metaphorically through complex rhythmic compositions, stylized forms, and subtle coloration. Chicago Cultural Center, and Renaissance Society. Himmelfarb taught painting and design for four decades at several institutions, including over 30 years at the DuPage Art League. She was married to the painter, Sam Himmelfarb, and helped him design their house, the Samuel and Eleanor Himmelfarb Home and Studio (built, 1942) in Winfield, Illinois, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Their son, John Himmelfarb, and grandchild, Serena Aurora, are also artists. Himmelfarb died at age 98 in Winfield in 2009. The home's large art studio and floor-to-ceiling views of the DuPage River and surrounding woodlands would serve as longtime inspirations for Eleanor's artistic pursuits. In the 1940s, she explored photography as well as mosaic tiles, block prints, stained glass and weaving; she and Sam also had two children, Susan (b. 1943) and John (b. 1946). Himmelfarb began studying at the Morton Arboretum with naturalist May Watts during that time; Watts would insist that Himmelfarb take over instruction of the Arboretum's painting classes in the 1950s, initiating a long teaching career. After Sam died in 1976, she enrolled in the MFA program at the University of Illinois at Chicago—studying with painter Morris Barazani—and took courses at the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) with sculptor Abbott Pattison and painter Claude Bentley. Himmelfarb exhibited with Sam and son, John, at the Bradley Gallery (Milwaukee, 1974), the Quincy Art Center, Her work belongs to many private and public collections, including the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Mary and Leigh Block Museum, Illinois State University, Lubeznik Center for the Arts, and Neiman Marcus Corporate Collection.

Artwork and reception Himmelfarb's painting ranges along a continuum between stylized representation and abstraction that is nonetheless rooted in objective sources, such as the landscape, human figure, and architectural forms.

Himmelfarb's earlier work often referenced experiences of daily existence and drew comparisons to medieval tapestries used calligraphic letterforms from diverse alphabets to create kaleidoscopic patterns and tangled spatial planes; She also taught painting and design at Roosevelt University, Rosary College, Triton College, and the College of DuPage; in 1993, she was artist-in-residence at Illinois State University. In 2003, she received the Foundation's "Open Space Award" in recognition of her efforts.

Samuel and Eleanor Himmelfarb Home and Studio In the early 1940s, Himmelfarb helped her husband, Sam, design a house to be built in a wooded area of Winfield, Illinois. Eleanor provided input to Sam's design on the floor-to-ceiling studio windows facing the DuPage River and woodlands as well as on the scale of the house's various interior spaces. The house often hosted conservation and arts gatherings—including such guests as author-broadcaster Studs Terkel, sculptor Ruth Duckworth, film actor Lou Gilbert, and the touring cast of Thornton Wilder's original 1943 production of The Skin of Our Teeth. In 2007, the Himmelfarb Home and Studio was featured in a Chicago Bauhaus and Beyond tour of Modernism in Chicago's western suburbs.