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Born in 1911, in New Jersey, I have devoted a lifetime to art.
My primary medium is oil, with periods of exploration into sculpture, prints, water media, collage and industrial design.
Dividing my time between city and country living, I spent the early years in the Philadelphia area. I moved to New York City in 1946, left for Europe in 1954, then returned to the USA and San Francisco in 1959.
Dorr Bothwell persuaded me to come back to the United States. She wanted to take a sabbatical and asked me to take over her classes. Dorr Bothwell is also the reason I came to Mendocino in 1960, as the first painting teacher at the new Mendocino Art Center. A mutual acquaintance had recommended her to Bill Zacha; she asked me to come hold the job for her.
I never intended to stay in Mendocino; I kept leaving, but something always pulled me back. Over time I have returned to Europe for sojourns in Paris and Norway, but I have lived in Mendocino since 1979, painting, exhibiting, writing and giving occasional seminars and lectures.
At present, I am working on a number of canvasses, most with garden themes.
My work is based on natural rhythms with a slant toward abstraction.
Hilda Pertha's career began with her first solo exhibit, held in Philadelphia in 1944. She has exhibited in museums and public galleries in the United States, France, Spain, Peru and Norway. WESTART magazine has published over 200 of her articles on painting.
European travels and years of residence in New York, Paris and other metropolitan cities have had their influence; but coastal and mountain regions have been strongly affirmative in the abstract style for which Pertha is best known.
Her subjects, abstracted from Nature, explore underlying energies and movements wherever she finds them, from a flower to a star, from earth to sea to sky.
A French critic once wrote, "Hilda Pertha's compositions are animated by wind, fog, and other rhythms which affect the soul while out in nature."
Pertha continues to be active in the art life of Mendocino, as she has been since 1960 when Bill Zacha brought her to teach at the Mendocino Art Center's first Summer Session.
Zacha's Bay Window Gallery offers a selection of Hilda Pertha's works for sale as well as a growing archive for art lovers and scholars.
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