Marder, Herbert | University of Illinois Archives

Herbert Marder was born in Vienna, Austria. the son of Moses and Pepi Marder, Herbert emigrated to the United States in 1939, fleeing the Holocaust. Hew was raised in New York. He married Norma Rajeck on November 4, 1956. Marder completed his PhD in English at Columbia University in 1964, writing his dissertation on Virginia Woolf.  He would publish two books on Woolf later in his career, Feminism and Art: A Study of Virginia Woolf (1968) and The Measure of Life: Virginia Woolf's Last Years (2000).

In 1965, he accepted a position as assistant professor of English at the University of Illinois.  In 1970, the Marders founded the New Vocal Workshop in their home on West Church Street in Champaign, Illinois. In the mid 1980s, Marder became interested in Watercolors and staged several exhibitions of his work at Nature's Table Restaurant.