[bio]

As a visual artist, Roberta Fineberg (RF) focuses on the themes of serendipity, inventiveness, the development of ideas and color fields for her mixed media works. Drawn to experimentation, she explores diverse mediums and concepts such as the ephemeral (Butterfly Series), stolen moments (documentary), play, timelessness, the enduring, and the significance of matter.

RF’s selected exhibitions: Women of Spirit Zurcher Gallery New York (2025); Sojourner Gallery New York (2022); Phyllis Harriman Gallery New York studio shows (2020, 2022); CADAF online art fair (2020); Gallery122 New York pop-up group show (2018); Curate NY online group show (2013); Paris Photo: Photos, Femmes, Feminisme group show (2010); and private and public collections, including portraits of women writers at the Bibliothèque Nationale and Bibliothèque Marguerite Durand in Paris, France. Additionally in 2022, RF’s photographic work Double Helix was part of and exhibited at Sotheby’s preview show for the summer auction Contemporary Discoveries in New York City.

Recent creative projects, in 2023 RF conceived in the public space an interactive installation which spun from the ceiling, works on paper that she made on the theme of women and the female body. From 2020-2023, RF was awarded 15 laurels from independent film festivals worldwide for her experimental smartphone video made during the pandemic, You Will Never Beat New York (2020). 

Artist Backstory:

RF started out as an editorial photographer while studying French in Paris in the mid-1980s. From France she contributed photography and writing to publications, including a column in The Saturday Review. Her freelance photography has appeared in publications such as American Girl, Le Monde, Jeune Afrique, Paris Match, L’Officiel Femme, Ms, Weltwoche, Vanguardia, among others with images licensed through stock agencies.

RF’s photographs were often selected for cover art by publishers, i.e. W.W. Norton, St. Martin’s Press, Harcourt, Bookspan, Simon & Schuster. In 1997 Macmillan published RF’s City Riders: A Story of Riding and Friendship with black-and-white photographs and text about three teenage girls who ride horses at the oldest horse stable in New York City, Claremont Riding Academy.

In 2003, Print Regional Design Annual New York awarded RF for book jacket photography for If Wishes Were Horses, making RF an award-winning photographer.