Born in Brooklyn in 1937, Albert Handell studied at the Art Students League in NYC and then spent 4 years living and painting in Paris. In 1965, he returned to the United States where he had his first NY exhibition at the famed ACA Gallery. And remarkably, every year from 1966 to today, Albert has had one-man shows at galleries and museums throughout the country, including museum solo shows at
- THE SCHENECTADY MUSEUM OF ART,
- THE ALBANY MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND ART,
- THE SPRINGFIELD ART MUSEUM, and
- THE BUTLER INSTITUTE OF AMERICAN ART (honored him with a Retrospective of his Pastels in 2007)
Not only is he a prolific artist in both oils and pastels, but he is also award winning with an astonishing 70+ awards, including most notably his election in 1987 to the Pastel Society of America’s Hall of Fame. Albert is the third living American pastelist to be so honored. In 2000, Albert received the first Life Time Achievement Award for Pastel from the Pastel Society of the West Coast.
Not surprisingly, Albert’s work has been the subject of countless art publications over his 50+year career, and since 1979, he has co-authored five books and from 1960-1975, his pastels were included in every book published in the U.S. on pastels.
Albert’s works are contained in numerous public collections, including the Schenectady Museum, Syracuse Museum of Art, Utah Museum of Fine Arts, the Lakeview Museum of Arts, in affiliation with the Smithsonian, the Capitol Art Collection in Santa Fe and the Butler Institute of American Art in Ohio.
