About the Artist

Beatrice Mandelman was born in 1912 in Newark, New Jersey. There she studied at Rutgers University and the School of Fine and Industrial Art. In New York she studied at the Art Students League. as well as independently with several artists. In the 1930s, Bea was employed by the Works Progress Administration's Federal Arts Project, as a serigrapher and muralist. In 1942 she married artist Louis Ribak and at the invitation of John Sloan, a Santa Fe summer resident, moved to New Mexico. The couple opened the Taos Valley Art School, where they instructed, in addition to developing a more modernist approach to their own work. They were part of the founding of the Taos Art Association and the Stables Gallery in the early 50's. In 1959, Ribak and Mandelman opened Gallery Ribak, exhibiting their own work as well as work by other Taos artists.