Mimi Herbert - Biography

Biography

Mimi Herbert’s work is in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Smithsonian Americn Art Museum, Renwick Gallery, the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, The National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., The Phillips Collection, Washington D.C., The Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, Tennessee, The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, The Bruce Museum, Grenwich, CT, the Gilbert and Lila Silverman Collection, Bloomfield Hills Michigan, the American University, Washington D.C., and in private collections in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Indonesia and El Salvador. She has lived and worked in Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Brazil, El Salvador, Haiti and New Zealand.

Mimi Herbert is represented by Bethesda Fine Art. She exhibited at Gallery K and at the Henri Gallery in Washington DC until the closing of Henri in the late eighties and the untimely deaths of Gallery K’s owners, Marc Moyens and Komei Wachi in 2003.

In 2002 the Smithsonian National Museum of American History acquired her “Tribute” sculptures created in the wake of the tragedy of 9/11. She was honored to be the single artist in the Museum’s Memorial Exhibition.

She was commissioned to create an 175 foot Bicentennial Pennant sculpture which spanned the facade of the the 17th street facade of the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.

In Indonesia from 1990 to 1995 she conducted research and field work in West Java for her book, “Voices of the Puppet Masters: The Wayang Golek Theater of Indonesia”, published by the Lontar Foundation in Jakarta and the University of Hawai’i Press in North America in 2002. Several of her puppet drawings are published in the book.

The drawings were shown in a solo exhibition at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Cress Gallery in 2006.

In 2002 she donated her collection of 235 wayang golek puppets to the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. Puppets from the collection remain on permanent view.

She has received the following awards and fellowships: Create Here Career Advancement Grant from the Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga, 2009; Fellowship Department of Fine Arts, American University, Washington D.C. , 1982-83; Departmental Prize for Drawing, Department of Fine Arts, American University, 1982; First Prize for Sculpture All India Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture, The Academy of Fine Arts, Calcutta 1963; Fulbright Traveling Fellowship for study of art in Baroda, India, 1960-61; Ford Foundation Fellowships for study at the University of Pennsylvania, South Asia Regional Studies, Philadelphia Pennsylvania, 1959-60 and 1960-61; United States Government Grants for Language Study (Hindi) 1959-60 and 1960-61; Maintenance Grant awarded by the Department of South Asia Regional Studies, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Pennsylvania,1958; Syracuse University Tuition Scholarships and a Banos Scholarship, Syracuse University, l954-58.

She lives with her husband in Reston, Virginia. They have two daughters and two grandchildren.