Hannelore Baron with the maiden name Hannelore Alexander was born in Dilligen, Germany near the French border in 1926. In 1938 her family’s textile shop was destroyed, her family home was ransacked, and her father was brutally beaten by Hitler’s Nazi regime. Baron and her family fled persecution in Nazi Germany, illegally crossing the border into Luxembourg in 1939. Hannelore’s childhood was filled with anxiety, displacement, trauma and violence due to the Holocaust and fleeing of Nazi Germany. In 1941 Baron's family sailed from Lisbon to New York and settled in the Bronx, New York City.
Hannelore Baron turned to her textile roots and enrolled in the Straubenmuller Textile High School in Manhattan. As a young adult, Baron was avidly reading eastern philosophy, making increasingly abstract paintings and experiencing the symptoms of claustrophobia, depression, nervous breakdowns, anxiety and trauma. She married book dealer Herman Baron in 1950 which whom she had a daughter, Julie and son Mark. In the late 1950s, Baron combined a variety of techniques and began making her first collages. Baron was occupied with raising her two children and beset by psychological problems. Baron continued with her art and even became a member of the National Association of Women Artists. She also volunteered at the Yonkers Jewish Community College which started to give her access to wood materials. Hannelore Baron had a one-person exhibition at Ulster County Community College in 1969. Thereafter, Baron began to make the box constructions that would become her true signature. In the early 1970s, Baron established a studio and devoted her time and energy completely to her artwork. Although her compositions are completely abstract, she considered them to be both personal and political statements. Hannelore Baron had a few exhibits in 1982 at Kathryn Markel Gallery. In 1987, Hannelore Baron passed away at the age of 61 after battling several types of cancer.
Hannelore Baron has an abstract style where she sculpts, and constructs found objects, textures, woods and personal belongings. Baron’s own personal narrative depicts the anxiety and traumatic memories of her childhood fleeing of Nazi Germany, which are engrained in Baron’s signature artwork. Splintered materials, threads, scraps with burn marks and holes, reveal the inner signs of struggle and survival that are evident in her unique collages and box constructions. Hannelore Baron’s intimate works are collected and exhibited by many important art museums, including: MoMA, Whitney, Guggenheim, Smithsonian, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Israel Museum and Albright-Knox Gallery.