October 8, 1898 |
Born in Debreczen, Hungary, as Sari Chylinska, daughter of a Polish nobleman and his Swiss-German wife. |
1917 |
The beginning of her studies of dance, first in Budapest, later in Vienna, and finally in Paris, where she trained in the studio of Raymond Duncan. It was in Budapest that she met Paul Dienes, who was a mathematician and poet. |
1922 |
Marriage to Paul.Dienes. The couple took up residence in Wales, where Sari Dienes began to be active in leather and textile design. |
1929 |
Moves to London, where Paul Dienes had accepted a Professorship at the University of London. Continuing activity in the applied arts, and the decision to become a professional artist. |
1930-1935 |
Studies in Paris at the Académie Moderne with Fernand Léger, André L'hote, and Amadée Ozenfant. |
1937 |
Appointed Assistant Director at the Ozenfant school in London. |
1938 |
Studies in London with Henry Moore. |
August 1939 |
Trip to the United States, where she was forced to remain by the outbreak of the Second World War on the day of her arrival, September 3. |
1942 |
One-woman show at the New School for Social Research, showing drawings and psychological portraits. She also received a fellowship from the New School for the period of 1942-1943 and was invited to work at Stanley Hayter's Atelier 17, which resulted in prints that were shown at the Wittenborn Gallery. |
1942-1945 |
Teaches at the Parsons School of Design. |
1945-1948 |
Teaches at the Brooklyn Museum School of Art, and as well at her own studio. |
1948 |
Deeply affected by a trip to Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona in the American Southwest. |
1950 |
Begins to show her developing abstract work with the Betty Parsons Gallery, where she was considered a member of "The Club" along with Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell, Ad Reinhardt, Stuart Davis, and others; the Betty Parsons Gallery again held exhibitions of her work in 1954 and 1959. |
1952 |
First period of residency at the MacDowell Colony, with subsequent residency in 1953 and 1955. This was also the year of the death of Paul Dienes, in London. |
1954 |
Residency at the Cummington School of Art in Cummington, Massachusetts, and the beginning of the rubbings. The series entitled The Sidewalks of New York was soon to follow, and the work was the subject of a feature article in Life magazine. |
1956 |
The beginning of the series of "bottle gardens". |
1957 |
Commissioned by the National Park Service and the University of Washington, in Seattle, to make rubbings of the Native American petroglyphs soon to be submerged by the creation of the Dalles Dam on the Columbia River, between the states of Oregon and Washington. |
1957-1959 |
After a devastating fire in her New York studio, Sari Dienes traveled first to the West Coast, where she officially became a Zen Buddhist, and then to Japan, where she studied wood block printing and ceramics, working in the studio of master potter Teruo Hara. Shows in Kyoto and Tokyo. |
1959 |
Show of ceramic work at the Crispo Gallery, and of rubbings of Kyoto walls at the Betty Parson's Gallery. |
1960 |
Takes up residence at Stony Point as a part of the artists' cooperative known as "The Land". |
1961 |
Included in the Museum of Modern Art's exhibition "The Art of Assemblage". This is also the year in which she began to work with kinetic sculpture. |
1965 |
Artist in Residence Grant from the Ford Foundation. |
1966 |
First works with Styrofoam printing techniques. |
1970 |
The first of the snow paintings. A film of the process of snow painting was produced in 1971 by the American Federation of the Arts. |
1971-1973 |
Awarded a grant from the Mark Rothko Foundation. |
1972 |
Begins to experiment with the medium of color Xerox, and is commissioned to do silk- screen murals for the recently completed New York State House, in Albany, N. Y. |
1973 |
Show in downtown New York at the A.I.R. Gallery, the women's co-operative gallery of which she counts as a founding member. Later exhibitions with A.I.R. were held in 1975, 1977, 1979, 1981 and 1990. |
1976 |
International Woman's Year Award for Distinguished Woman Artist, conferred by the United Nations. Invited to India to address the International Institute of Design. |
1977 |
Featured in Martha Edelheit's film Hats, Bottles and Bones, and in Dee Dee Halleck's video Masks. |
1979 |
Grants from the National Endowment of the Arts and the Gottlieb Foundation, and the Gold Medal from the Accademia Italia delle Arti di Lavoro, Parma Italy. |
1980 |
Featured in People magazine. |
1981 |
Honoree of the Women's Caucus for Art; three months residency, working exclusively with local materials, at Atios de Chavon, in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. |
1984 |
First trip to China |
1986 |
Retrospective at Thorpe intermedia Gallery, Sparkhill, New York. |
December 1990 |
Exhibition at Galerie J. & J. Donguy, Paris. |
March 1991 |
Exhibition at "LA GIARINA", Verona. |