Rachel Feinstein

Rachel Feinstein (born May 25, 1971) is an American artist who specializes in sculpture. She is best known for baroque, fantasy-inspired sculptures like "The Snow Queen", which was drawn from a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale. There have been over two dozen group and solo showings of her work in the United States, Europe and Asia.

Early life Feinstein, the daughter of a dermatologist and a nurse, was raised in Miami, Florida. Her father is Jewish and her mother Catholic. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Columbia University in 1993, studying religion, philosophy and studio art.

Career In 1994, Feinstein's works were shown for the first time in the Sonnabend Gallery Artist Invitational group showing. In that year she also showed at the Exit Art "Let the Artist Live" exhibit where she built a Sleeping Beauty's gingerbread house in which she actually slept.

In 1999 while Feinstein was working as a receptionist at the Marianne Boesky gallery, Boesky saw some of her sculpture sketches and relieved her of that position so that she could show her works. The gallery has had three showings of her work.

In 2002 Feinstein and Currin published a 24-page book of their works at the Hydra Workshop in Hydra, Greece which they titled The Honeymooners, John Currin and Rachel Feinstein. It includes an interview conducted by Sadie Coles.

In 2008 Feinstein published a signed, limited edition full-color catalog of her works over the previous ten years. The introduction was written by author James Frey and the book includes an interview conducted by filmmaker Sofia Coppola.

In 2019 Feinstein opened her first solo museum survey in the United States, "Maiden, Mother, Crone," at the Jewish Museum in New York. The exhibition opened to the public on November 1, 2019, and was organized by Kelly Taxter, The Jewish Museum's Barnett and Annalee Newman Curator of Contemporary Art.

Feinstein's flair for fashion inspired a 2004 collection by Marc Jacobs.

Works Feinstein's mediums include oil paint on glass and sculptures made of plaster and carved wood. Her work has been described as creating a "baroque kitsch fantasy-land".

In 2000 Feinstein exhibited works in "Pastoral Pop" at the Whitney Museum at Philip Morris and 2000 at "The Americans" exhibition at the Barbican Centre in London. Her 2001 debut solo show was inspired by her trip to palaces in Munich and Vienna.

In 2004 Feinstein displayed her plywood sculpture "The Crucifixion" at the Friedrich Petzel Gallery. The life-sized depiction consisted of four figures: Jesus on the cross, Mary at his feet, John the Baptist and Saint John. A reviewer remarked that rather than making a joke of the scene, as several contemporary artists had done, she had produced a work that was "startling" as well as "evocative and fresh."

In 2005 Feinstein produced a show at the Boesky Gallery featuring elderly women posed in ornate costumes and wigs. She painted them in oils on ovals of glass and had them photographed. Her inspiration for the set of pieces was Miss Havisham from Great Expectations. She told an interview that being pregnant at the time, "I guess I was thinking about mortality, feminine beauty, my fears about being a mother and an artist." Notable pieces included a woman posing erotically, two dancing satyrs, a Renaissance-era avenging angel,

The Fashion Fund Award committee commissioned Feinstein to create their 2010 award. She created it in the form of a swan which she described as "a pure, elite thing." For the ceremony she created 20 "one-of-a-kind" awards cast in bronze.

In January 2011 Feinstein opened her show "The Snow Queen" at Lever House in New York. It combines Carpenter Gothic architecture and Baroque painting to present vignettes of Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale The Snow Queen, showing Feinstein's "flair for synthesizing myriad fascinations."

In February 2012 Feinstein created for a Marc Jacobs' fashion show "a twisted paper castle set", also described as "a decayed Walt Disney castle." Rachel Feinstein referred to her work as "rococo with a nasty underside".

From November 2012 to January 2013 the Gagosian Gallery held Feinstein's first exhibition in Rome, Italy. For it she created an impressionistic panoramic wallpaper of Rome covering different historical periods, painted and displayed on mirrors and accompanied by life size wooden sculptures inspired by depictions of early Christian saints and martyrs.

Feinstein's works have been bought by some notable collectors, including Aby Rosen, Alberto Mugrabi

Personal life At the 1994 "Let the Artist Live" exhibition, Feinstein met John Currin. They married three years later on Valentine's Day. Tropical Rodeo, Le Consortium, Dijon, France, 2006 Rachel Feinstein, Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, NY, 2008 Rachel Feinstein: The Snow Queen, Lever House Art Collection, New York, NY, 2011 Rachel Feinstein, Gagosian Gallery, Rome, Italy, 2012 Rachel Feinstein: Secrets, Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills, CA, 2018 Rachel Feinstein: Maiden, Mother Crone, Jewish Museum (Manhattan), New York, NY, 2019

Selected group exhibitions Let the Artist Live, Exit Art, New York, NY, 1994 John Currin and Rachel Feinstein, Hydra Workshop, Hydra, Greece, 2002 Something About Mary, The Metropolitan Opera, New York, NY, 2009 The Little Black Dress, SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, GA, 2012 L’Almanach 14, Le Consortium, Dijon, France, 2014 More Material, Salon 94, New York, NY, 2014 No Longer / Not Yet, Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai, China, 2015 The Seven Ages of Woman, Performa, New York, NY, 2016 Naturalia, Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York, NY, 2017 SEED, Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York, NY, 2018 People, Jeffrey Deitch, New York, NY, 2018