Gloria Garfinkel

1929 - 2024

Gloria's life was characterized by love of family and love of creating art, even while facing considerable personal challenges.

She and her sister Catherine spent their early lives in an orphanage until she was eleven and her father remarried. While at the orphanage she was allowed to play with crayons, a passion which grew into her statement at the age of fourteen "I want to be an artist."

Visits to the Brooklyn Museum and the Metropolitan Museum opened her vistas. She was able to attend the Fashion Institute of Technology on a scholarship, graduating in 1949. She intended to work as a clothing designer, and did for several years until the chauvinism of the industry was too much to endure. All the while she continued to paint, winning an award from the Smithtown Museum which validated her career choice.

This was the first of many awards and recognition. Her works explored Japanese themes, social issues and family, in textiles, woodcuts, monoprints, sculpture, found media, and painting, all with the enthusiastic support of her husband.

Her extensive exhibition history, both solo and in groups, started in 1980 and averaged a show per year to 2020. Her bibliography is similarly extensive, with catalogues and artist's books, and she is well represented in museum, corporate and private collections.

Her artistic career is documented in the monumental 'Gloria Garfinkel: Works 1961 - 2018, Edited by Andrew Kelly', a 450 page award-winning survey of her work.

She is survived by her son Paul Garfinkel, his wife Holly Schepisi and their children Kayla and Easton; stepson James Garfinkel, his wife Georganne (Backman) and their daughters Elior and Noa; daughter in law Shelley (Spector) and her children Pamela, Alicia and Lauren, Alicia's husband Robert Pines and their son Dylan, and niece Beth Moose. She was predeceased by her son Peter, stepson David, her sisters Catherine and Marion, and Barry, her beloved husband of 52 years.

Services will be held at Frank E. Campbell - The Funeral Chapel at 1076 Madison Ave at 81st St Tuesday the 21st of May at noon, followed by interment at Trinity Church Cemetery and Mausoleums, 770 Riverside Drive.

In lieu of flowers Gloria wished that contributions may be made to the NY Public Library (nypl.org), homeless children (ny.covenanthouse.org), Planned Parenthood (plannedparenthood.org), Orbis eyecare (orbis.org), cancer information for women (bcrf.org), or drug abuse agency (asapnys.org).