[1] Adopted as an infant by Julius Earl and Minnie (née Wallach) Feinberg,[1] she lived in Wilmette, Illinois until the age of eight, with a businessman father and a mother devoted to her cultural development.
[3] Her mother took her on weekly visits to the Art Institute of Chicago, her favorite works in the collection being those by Rembrandt, Edward Hopper, and the Thorne miniature rooms.
Briefly, Weber attended the Aspen Design Conference, which was deeply influential to her developing artistic style, introducing a graphic and bold aesthetic.
Sam Hunter, then curator at MoMA, arranged for her to meet art historian H. W. Janson, who admired Weber's work but stated that he did not include women painters in his books.
It was also around this time that she came to know Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, James Rosenquist, and other Pop artists through her contacts at the Castelli Gallery.
Her preferred subjects were anonymous figures engaged in everyday activities, such as a group of friends playing cards (Hearts, 1964), or business men riding escalators (Munchkins I, II, & III, 1964).
Working from photographs and slides of New York City, she made highly detailed paintings of fruit-stands (Bluebird, 1972), trash and litter (Heineken, 1976), which would become her dominant themes over the next several years.
Moving from small to large scale, the experience working in monotype resulted in a dramatic change in her painting style.
[5] In 2000, she began working in collage, culminating in a major installation, Head Room, at the Contemporary Gallery at the Nassau County Museum of Art in Roslyn, NY.
[1] In 2013, the Chrysler Museum of Art acquired her painting, Munchkins, I, II, & III (1964), showing silhouetted business men riding the escalators of the PanAm Building, which had been completed in New York the year before.
Online art publication Blouin ArtInfo announced the acquisition with the headline, "Chrysler Museum Acquires Original "Mad Men" Painting by Neglected Pop Artist Idelle Weber".