SIGMUND ABELES

Sig was my Mother´s cousin and an important part of our family. What I remember most was how he took the time and made the effort to be involved in our celebrations and sorrows. He was full of stories and a great conversationalist! He will be missed!

Just finding out about this and wanted to send out condolences from the Albert and Hoffman family. We had the pleasure of spending time with him and his family over the years. He was a wonderful person and artist. He will be missed.

I am Judy Beaulieu (Lewis now). I’m sending my condolences to all of Sig’s family, especially to Shoshanna, Max and David, and to his very best friend, Nora Lavori. In my second year at Swain School, I met Sig. He was the most helpful instructor to all the beginning artists. He was very good at broadening our ideas. I graduated and lost touch, but after moving back east to North Carolina, I wrote to him, finally to thank him for all that he had taught me. He wrote back. We had been...

I had the privilege of studying with Sigmund at UNH 1970-74 in drawing, printmaking and sculpture. He was the most inspiring teacher I ever had, and remained my lifelong friend. I will always be grateful to him for his encouragement and friendship. I talked with him on the phone several times over the past year and told him how much he had inspired me and contributed decisively to my becoming an artist. My most sincere condolences to his family and loved ones. Katharine McDevitt

As a young art-museum curator just starting out, I had the opportunity to work with Sig on a small exhibition of his work at the Myrtle Beach Art Museum. I will never forget the kindness, patience and support he - a well established professional artist from New York - showed to the then very green South Carolina curator. I also had the pleasure of working with his lovely daughter Shoshanna on that project - my heart goes out to her and her brothers.

I knew Sig through our ties at the Columbia Museum of Art. I worked with him for weeks on his 2011 exhibition, "An Artist's Eye." He sat next to me at my desk as he dictated his label copy and I typed it, and his stories were fascinating. He had a whimsical remark or funny tale for just about everything. The attached photo is from our CMA archives and shows a very young Sig (far right) in early 1956 in the studios of the Richland Art School, which was attached to the CMA when it was located...

I met Sig during my second year at Swain School of Design, when he was first hired, along with other young artists who had been recommend by Boris Mirski of the Mirski Gallery in Boston, to Katherine Bullard (a devoted patron of the school and it's Board of Directors. Sig was hired to set-up a printmaking department and teach classes in relief and intaglio printing and to teaching most if not all of these printmaking classes as well as drawing - I was one of Sig's first art students - he...

Three years studying with him at Wellesley and a summer at Skowhegan on his recommendation shaped my life. Literally. And I told him through the years. A great soul.

Sigmund was my professor at UNH, from the moment of my first drawing class I knew this day would change me forever. Sigmund was kind, generous with his talent and encouraging in a very gentle way. I will be grateful forever that we crossed paths. It was an honor Sigmund, Love , Ellen D. Peace to his Family