John Graham

John Graham was born Ivan Dombrowski in Kiev, Russia, where he received a law degree, held public office, and served in the military. He immigrated to the United States in 1920, settling in New York, and enrolled at the Arts Students League two years later. Graham was an intellectual with interests that ranged from theosophy and other systems of philosophy and religion to mathematics. Admired for his fluency in many languages and his knowledge of art theory, Graham kept company with such prominent art figures as Stuart Davis, and later mentored younger artists including Arshile Gorky and Willem de Kooning (1904-1997). During his lifetime Graham enjoyed the patronage of individuals such as Duncan Phillips and sisters Etta and Claribel Cone, whose notable collections included the art of both the European and American avant-garde. In 1937 Graham published a seminal text System and Dialectics of Art, which espoused the expression of art through pure form and became influential in the development of abstract expressionism.