Sari Dienes (1898-1992), whose original name was Chylinska von Daivitz, was born in Hungary in 1898 and in her youth studied dance, music, and philosophy. She decided to become an artist at the age of 29, when she was living in Wales with her husband, Paul Dienes. Over the next decade, she studied art in Paris and London. Stranded in New York at the outbreak of World War II, she made the city her home, supporting herself by teaching art.
During her career, Dienes made elaborate rubbings of American Indian petroglyphs and New York City manhole covers, painted abstract expressionist drip paintings and turned her studio-house in Stony Point into a walk-in art environment. When her 57th Street studio burned in 1957, Dienes spent two years in Japan studying with a master potter, adding ceramics to her repertory. In the early 1970's, Dienes became a member of AIR, the first women’s cooperative art gallery in the United States. Her last exhibition at AIR, a retrospective that closed in 1992, included a number of Styrofoam prints and paintings from the 1980's. Her work is represented by Pavel Zoubok Gallery in New York and preserved by the Sari Dienes Foundation.
