[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 195 (Wednesday, December 19, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Page S15995]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                        TRIBUTE TO SHEILA ISHAM

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I wish to pay tribute to the life and 
work of one of our Nation's great artists, Sheila Isham, on her 80th 
birthday.
  Sheila was born in New York City, 80 years ago today. She grew up in 
Cedarhurst, just outside the city, and on an 80-acre island in the St. 
Lawrence River in Canada, which for years lacked both electricity and 
running water. She graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1950 and married 
Heyward Isham, an officer in the U.S. Foreign Service, and the couple 
moved to Berlin. There began her path to becoming an artist.
  Sheila became the first foreigner to gain admission to the Berlin Art 
Academy in the years following World War II. There, she studied with 
Hans Uhlman, a student of abstract painter Kasimir Malevich, and 
absorbed the works of Wassily Kandinsky.
  In 1955 Heyward Isham was posted to the American embassy in Moscow, 
and the Ishams moved to Russia, where life became very restricted. 
Sheila has told of having to import several years' worth of food from 
outside the country, of being watched and followed constantly, and of 
being unable to meet with other artists or to draw freely. A 2004 
profile in the St. Petersburg Times reported that ``once, Isham was 
almost arrested by a vigilant Soviet officer who noticed that an 
American was drawing a building, which, according to Isham, turned out 
to be a center for KGB interrogations.''
  But Sheila continued her work. She met George Kostakis, a prominent 
collector of the Russian avant-garde, including works by Malevich, 
Kandinsky, Tatlin, Popova, Goncharova, and Larionov, and she traveled 
through Georgia, St. Petersburg, Yalta, Sochi, and Tblisi to sketch and 
meet with local artists and writers.
  After a few years back in the United States, Sheila and her family 
traveled to Hong Kong, where she would live and work for 5 years. She 
taught contemporary arts at the Chinese University, exhibited her work 
in China and Japan, and studied with a master of classical Chinese 
calligraphy. ``I chose calligraphy because it seemed to me to be 
abstract and perfect at the same time,'' she said.
  On her return to America in 1965, Sheila began painting, exploring 
colors and the nexus between Eastern and Western cultures. She would 
later live and travel in France, Haiti, India, and finally New York, 
where she has made her home.
  Sheila Isham's work is part of the permanent collections of some of 
America's most important institutions, including the Corcoran Gallery 
of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum, the Library of Congress, the Museum of 
Modern Art in New York, the Smithsonian, the National Museum for Women 
in the Arts, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. She has been the 
subject of major one-person exhibitions at the Smithsonian, the 
Corcoran, and the Russian Museum, and countless gallery and traveling 
exhibitions, including at the Island Arts Gallery in Newport, Rhode 
Island.
  Sheila's life has not been without periods of darkness. Susan Fisher 
Sterling, the chief curator of the National Museum for Women in the 
Arts, wrote: ``In unpredictable and often dramatic ways, Sheila Isham 
has been challenged by forces that threatened to overwhelm her . . . 
yet, despite these upheavals, her spirited work prevails.''
  After a fire destroyed many works in her Washington, DC, studio, 
Sheila said: ``I thought that the burnt studio looked like a painting, 
like a myth, something you might want to take the picture of. I had to 
come to terms with that. I became freer in a way.''
  When her daughter Sandra contracted HIV/AIDS through a blood 
transfusion, Sheila began work on the enormous, five-painting Victoria 
series, which she calls ``at once a celebration and a working through 
the darkest period of my life.'' She said: ``It spans all human 
emotions from love to terror to hope and finally triumph and joy. It is 
an epic poem in paint, expressed in brilliant color and strong forms.'' 
The series was exhibited for the first time in its entirety by the 
National Museum of Women in the Arts in 2005, 9 years after Sandra 
passed away.
  Sheila Isham's work reflects the iconic melting pot of our Nation's 
history. Though she draws inspiration from places as diverse as postwar 
Berlin, Russia, China, Haiti, France, and New York City, her work 
remains clearly and vibrantly American. Her art, which resides all over 
the world, is itself an ambassador both for her creative vision and for 
her country. We are enriched by her talent and her acquaintance.
  Alexander Borovsky, head curator of contemporary art at the Russian 
State Museum, wrote this:

       As an artist, Isham is marked by an incredible 
     restlessness. Even the calm of an ``oasis'' created by her 
     own hand . . . is only relative. She continually explores new 
     paths and returns to the old. Few artists--including Isham, I 
     expect--can say precisely what they are seeking. Having 
     mastered the art of return, Sheila Isham knows to whom it is 
     that she returns--to herself. Truly a rare gift in 
     contemporary art.

  I come to the Senate floor today to offer congratulations to Sheila 
on her 80th birthday. I trust this day will be an occasion for all of 
us to recognize her extraordinary contribution to American art, and 
anticipate the many achievements still to come.

                          ____________________