Barbara Ann Hult Lekberg

Place: Portland

Born: 1925

Death: 2018

Biography:

Barbara Ann Lekberg (née Barbara Ann Hult; March 19, 1925 – February 14, 2018) was an American sculptor. She was born in Portland, Oregon and grew up in the mid-west. Her parents were musicians and she developed an early love and appreciation for the arts. She attended University of Iowa, studying sculpture under Humbert Albrizio, Philip Guston, and Mauricio Lasansky. She graduated in 1946 with a B.A. degree in sculpture, and in 1947 with a M.A. degree in art history. She moved to New York City in the late 1940s and studied at The Clay Club (now known as the SculptureCenter), under Sahl Swarz and learned how to weld steel sculptures. Her first solo exhibition was in 1959 at the SculptureCenter. She made large figurative metal sculptors, often involving draped fabrics. Lekberg taught classes at the University of the Arts, from 1981 to 2001. She was a member of the National Academy of Design. Lekberg was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in fine arts two times (1957, 1959). In 1956, she married Victor Tamerlis, a rare-books dealer and together they lived in Greenwich Village. They had a daughter born in 1962, Zoe Tamerlis Lund. The short film Zoe Rising (2014), documented their daughter's life through the memories of Barbara Lekberg. Lekberg died on February 14, 2018, in a nursing home in the Bronx, after struggling with Alzheimer's disease.