Harold Ambellan

Who is Harold Ambellan?

Harold Ambellan was born on May 24, 1912 in Buffalo, New York. While studying sculpture and fine arts in Buffalo, he was awarded a scholarship to the Art Student League in 1930, where he spent the following two years. From 1935-1939, as one of the many American artists who benefited from Roosevelt's Federal Art Project, Ambellan created a series of mural sculptures entitled Family and Learning, for the Willert Park Courts, a public housing project in Buffalo, New York, as well as a sculpture for Brooklyn College in New York. He was also one of the artists featured in the 1938 group show, Subway Art, at the Museum of Modern Art. Ambellan was elected President of the Sculptors Guild in 1941, the same year that his work was exhibited in group shows at both the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia.

In 1944, as a member of the U.S. Navy, Ambellan participated in the liberation of Normandy. Upon his return to New York, he spent two years teaching three-dimensional art at the Workshop School.