Edna Hibel (1917-2014) grew up in the Boston area and by the young age of 9, she began experimenting with painting in elementary school. Her summers where spent along the shore in Hull, Massachusetts and in Maine learning about watercolor painting. Hibel received her formal artistic training at the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts, from 1935-1939. In 1942, she earned the Sturtevant Traveling Fellowship to Mexico.
When Hibel was just 23, the Boston Museum of fine Arts acquired one of her paintings for their collection making her, at the time, the youngest artist to be purchased by a major American museum.
Over the course of her 70 year professional career, her work has been shown in prominent museums and galleries in over 20 countries, including museums located in Brazil, China, Costa Rica, Russia and the U.S.A., and under the royal patronage of Count and Countess Bernadotte of Germany, Count Thor Bonde of Sweden, Prince and the late Princess Rainier of Monaco and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of England.
Hibel passed away on December 7th, 2014 in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida just one month short of her 98th birthday. |