Thinking Violets

Helaine Blumenfeld is one of the most respected sculptors of her generation and one of the art world’s best kept secrets. Now in her eighth decade, this is the first film about her life and work. Featuring sequences filmed in Paris, where Blumenfeld first learned her craft under the great Russian sculptor Ossip Zadkine; Pietrasanta, Italy – a sanctuary for sculptors since Michelangelo, where Blumenfeld has a studio; and the artist’s hometown of Cambridge, this film reveals the story of one of Britain’s great unsung artists. It follows the creation of Blumenfeld’s sculpture, Tree of Life: Encounter, from conceiving the form in clay, to scaling up, ‘roughing out’ and finishing the marble, to installing the completed 10ft sculpture at the Woolf Institute’s new headquarters at Westminster College, Cambridge, in February 2018. Timothy Potts, Director, J Paul Getty Museum, who features in the film says: “It’s quite remarkable that Helaine Blumenfeld, at this stage in her life, is enjoying …