Estelle Tambak died in 2002 at the age of 88. Over her long life, she was a prolific painter, a pioneering educator, a resolute social activist, and a world traveler.
A self-taught painter, Tambak’s career spanned 58 years. Her subject matter reflects her joy in recording the variety of life that she found in her journeys to Poland, Mexico Portugal, England, Czechoslovakia, Belgium, France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Israel, New Guinea, Bali, Australia, Greece, Yugoslavia, Jamaica, Guatemala, the USSR, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Ghana, and Argentina and parts of the US but always returning to her cramped studio in her brownstone on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Given her naïve painting style, it is not surprising that Tambak’s training was in early childhood education. A turning point in her life came in 1947 when she was invited to work in Poland with Jewish orphans from the Holocaust. Returning to the US, she taught in the public schools where she became a victim of the McCarthy period and lost her job because of her union activities. In 1967 she founded River Park Nursery on Amsterdam Ave. in New York. The school was based on a progressive multi-cultural and child-empowering program far ahead of its time. Art was central to her teaching as a means of developing individualized expression in her young charges. The fact that the school remains in operation to this day is testament to the enduring power of her message. Indeed, her memorial following her death was attended by many of the now adult children who fondly remembered her influence. The proceeds from sales of her art are donated to scholarship funds at River Park. |