Edna Hibel

Abraham (Bert) Hibel Poland age 4

Quite often artists who are revered for their art embody tortured souls or are eccentric individuals that, as Henry David Thoreau once described, “…march to the tune of a different drummer.” George Bernard Shaw observed that “You will think less of the art, when you know the artist.” Not so in the case of Edna Hibel. She certainly doesn’t fit that profile. Edna Hibel is not a tortured soul, and everyone who meets her becomes even more attracted to her art. Small in stature, but with an enormous heart, she’s a congenial, friendly, unassuming wisp of a woman with the patience of Job, yet paints every day with the passion of Mother Theresa. Her rare gift seems to allow her to tap into the souls of the subjects in her paintings and capture the very essence of their humanity. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the kind and gentle spirit wrapped in the body of this painter somehow manages to escape through her brush with each and every stroke she spreads on a canvas.

This highly popular artist is loved as much for her warm, adoring demeanor as for her art. Like any exceptional artist, Edna has an emotional connection to her art. Her spirit is so filled with love, appreciation of beauty, the purity of life, and universal peace, it becomes as natural for these qualities to materialize in her paintings as it is to breathe.

Edna Hibel didn’t grow up wanting to be an artist; she just was an artist. She started painting at an early age because it came naturally to her. Edna Hibel was born to paint … to create.

Like a painting, Edna’s life is formed through the canvas of her heritage, with every episode becoming the brush strokes that shaped the unique work of art known as Edna Hibel. The backdrop against which this work of art is painted is an ancestry of Jewish immigrants from Lithuania on her mother’s side and Poland on her father’s. Born and raised in the Boston area, young Edna grew up with two strong passions – painting and playing tennis. She connected with the love of her life and eventual husband, Tod Plotkin, the summer after they both graduated from high school in 1934, although they had lived in the same neighborhoods and attended the same schools since third grade. Her talent was recognized early when she was in grade school, leading her to spend five years studying at the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts, from which she earned the Sturtevant Traveling Fellowship to study in Mexico for several months, always with the unrelenting support and encouragement of her mother. After her wedding, she assumed she would have to give up painting for marriage, but Tod made no such demands. Instead, Edna kept on painting even while bearing and raising three sons. In 1959, Edna’s father died. That same year, the family business, Plotkin Brothers’ clothing store, was forced to close when sales took a dramatic downturn and was unable to recover from the financial loss. To provide income for the family, Edna started teaching art classes.

Interest in her art grew during the next two years. Tod and Edna considered someday opening a gallery. Then in 1961 things took a turn for the better when they were offered a building in Rockport, Massachusetts in which to build a Hibel art gallery. Lena, Edna’s widowed mother, was still mourning the loss of her husband, and Tod and Edna saw this as an opportunity to motivate her to move on by enlisting her help in running the new gallery. This decision was a good move. With her acute business acumen and boundless energy Lena became a key reason for the new gallery’s success. Within days of opening, Clayton and Ethelbelle Craig entered their lives when they walked into the gallery and fell in love with both Edna’s art and Lena. This association changed everything. The Craigs spread the word to all of their wealthy, influential friends and acquaintances about the new artist they had discovered. With this fortuitous and grand new exposure, Edna’s art grew more and more popular in the 1960s. Lena soon was selling an average of one painting a day, a pace which endured for the rest of the decade. Eventually the Craig relationship led to the establishment of the Hibel Museum of Art in Palm Beach, Florida on January 2, 1977, as well as an art gallery on Worth Avenue in Palm Beach and the formation of the Hibel Society, which Edna described as her fan club. The Craigs also introduced her to a number of celebrities, including actress Ginger Rogers, sparking a friendship that produced one of Edna’s largest and most popular paintings, a life-size portrait of the famous movie star. Edna began producing lithographs in the early 1970s when a gallery owner offered to buy the entire edition if she would produce one. She established a longstanding relationship with a lithographer in Zurich, resulting in her spending several months each year in Switzerland. She and Tod have also traveled extensively throughout the world on excursions with the Hibel Society, providing most of the homespun stories of her adventures that have endeared her to thousands of fans over the years. Showered with hundreds of awards and honors, she received the prestigious Leonardo da Vinci World Award of Arts for 2001, only the second woman and the second American to receive the award. Treasured for her mother and child paintings, Edna Hibel is also revered for her nudes and incredible character studies.

But it’s the eyes of her subjects that captivate audiences the most. Edna has the rare ability to capture a spirit in her paintings that is reflected through the eyes of her images. They seem to transcend beyond the canvas. You see more than color, style, texture, and technique in a Hibel painting. You see heart and soul.

Edna is filled with as much heart and soul as her paintings. She embodies the spirit of the best qualities of humanity – love, kindness, respect, beauty, caring, and the appreciation of the finer things in life. Like the paintings she creates, Edna Hibel is an exquisite work of art.

This is the introduction to "Hibel, the Life and Art of Edna Hibel" biography on sale now at the Hibel Museum of Art

Proceeds from the sale of this book go to help support the Hibel Museum of Art. The Hibel Museum of Art is a non profit 501 [c]3 corporation. It is a private museum and operates solely on donations and sales from the Hibel Museum Gallery (located at 661 Maplewood Drive, Jupiter). With out donations from our generous supporters we can not keep our doors open. If you would like to make a tax-deductible donation to the Hibel Museum of Art please contact one of the museum staff members. We thank you for your continued support. For more information regarding upcoming events and exhibits please contact the museum Tuesday through Saturday 11am -4pm. Group Tours Available.

Copyright © 2006 Hibel Museum of Art Images are owned and copy written by the Edna Hibel Studios.