Tondo

Hedda Sterne fled to New York in 1941 after narrowly escaping a massacre of Romanian Jews in Bucharest. In the 1950s, the artist depicted her new surroundings in various abstract paintings. In these canvases, the structure, speed, and motion of the city are invoked in abstract, overlapping forms that seem to be in continuous movement. Here, the dynamic lines of the painting are enhanced by the round (tondo) format of the painting. Paintings like these demonstrate the active role that Sterne played in the dissemination of Abstract Expressionism. Indeed, in 1950 Life magazine named Sterne one of the best artists under age thirty-six, recognizing her innovative style. (Many publications had wrongly listed her birth year as 1916, an error she only corrected much later.)