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Abraham Walkowitz
1878–1965
BirthplaceTyumen, Siberia, Russia
Death placeBrooklyn, New York, United States of America
BiographyA member of America's first generation of artists to break with traditional representation in his art, Abraham Walkowitz created figural works, portraits, landscapes, and abstract works in a range of media and styles. The son of a rabbi, Walkowitz was eleven years old when he emigrated from his native Siberia to New York with his widowed mother and sisters. He was an avid draftsman and soon began attending art classes after school and in evenings. In 1898, Walkowitz enrolled in the venerable National Academy of Design and the following year he studied etching with painter and illustrator Walter Shirlaw (1838–1909). He then began teaching at the Educational Alliance in New York and exhibited there and at the Art Culture League, University Settlement, while continuing his studies at the National Academy.
Walkowitz was in Paris in 1906–07 studying at the Académie Julian, an art school popular with Americans, when he witnessed a performance by the American-born dance pioneer Isadora Duncan (1877–1927), whose free-form movements inspired him artistically for decades to come. In Paris, Walkowitz also encountered several emerging strands of artistic modernism, from the geometric reductions of cubism to the intuitive expression of spiritual impulses in the paintings of Russian artist Vasily Kandinsky (1866–1944). On his return to New York, Walkowitz supported himself as a lettering artist, living for a time with his friend the abstract artist Max Weber. In 1912 he joined the avant-garde circle of artists associated with photographer and modernist art impresario Alfred Stieglitz (1864–1946), exhibiting in his gallery known as 291. The following year, twelve of Walkowitz's works were included in the groundbreaking so-called Armory Show, which introduced the latest developments in European and American modernist art to shocked audiences in New York, Chicago, and Boston. Walkowitz was subsequently associated with other important exhibitions and organizations, notably the Forum exhibition at Anderson Galleries in New York in 1916; the annual shows of the Society of Independent Artists (of which he was elected a director in 1918 and a vice-president in 1934); and the Société Anonyme in 1920. His work was also presented by such galleries as Kraushaar Galleries and the Downtown Gallery, both sympathetic to artistic innovation.
Walkowitz revisited Europe in 1914, when he traveled in Greece and Italy, and in 1931, when he spent a summer in Salzburg, Austria, with the sister of the now-deceased Duncan. His drawings of the dancer were exhibited at Park Art Galleries in 1937 and in 1939 the Brooklyn Museum held a retrospective exhibition of his paintings, drawings, and prints, followed by another such display at the Newark Museum in 1941. Keenly interested in the art of his contemporaries, Walkowitz persuaded some one hundred of them to make painted and sculpted portraits of him to demonstrate the diversity and individuality of artistic expression; the resulting works were gathered in a traveling exhibition organized by the Brooklyn Museum in 1944. The artist remained active and exhibited widely in the following decade even as his eyesight began to fail. The American Academy of Arts and Letters presented Walkowitz with its annual award for a distinguished elderly artist in 1962, three years before his death at the age of eighty-seven.
Walkowitz was in Paris in 1906–07 studying at the Académie Julian, an art school popular with Americans, when he witnessed a performance by the American-born dance pioneer Isadora Duncan (1877–1927), whose free-form movements inspired him artistically for decades to come. In Paris, Walkowitz also encountered several emerging strands of artistic modernism, from the geometric reductions of cubism to the intuitive expression of spiritual impulses in the paintings of Russian artist Vasily Kandinsky (1866–1944). On his return to New York, Walkowitz supported himself as a lettering artist, living for a time with his friend the abstract artist Max Weber. In 1912 he joined the avant-garde circle of artists associated with photographer and modernist art impresario Alfred Stieglitz (1864–1946), exhibiting in his gallery known as 291. The following year, twelve of Walkowitz's works were included in the groundbreaking so-called Armory Show, which introduced the latest developments in European and American modernist art to shocked audiences in New York, Chicago, and Boston. Walkowitz was subsequently associated with other important exhibitions and organizations, notably the Forum exhibition at Anderson Galleries in New York in 1916; the annual shows of the Society of Independent Artists (of which he was elected a director in 1918 and a vice-president in 1934); and the Société Anonyme in 1920. His work was also presented by such galleries as Kraushaar Galleries and the Downtown Gallery, both sympathetic to artistic innovation.
Walkowitz revisited Europe in 1914, when he traveled in Greece and Italy, and in 1931, when he spent a summer in Salzburg, Austria, with the sister of the now-deceased Duncan. His drawings of the dancer were exhibited at Park Art Galleries in 1937 and in 1939 the Brooklyn Museum held a retrospective exhibition of his paintings, drawings, and prints, followed by another such display at the Newark Museum in 1941. Keenly interested in the art of his contemporaries, Walkowitz persuaded some one hundred of them to make painted and sculpted portraits of him to demonstrate the diversity and individuality of artistic expression; the resulting works were gathered in a traveling exhibition organized by the Brooklyn Museum in 1944. The artist remained active and exhibited widely in the following decade even as his eyesight began to fail. The American Academy of Arts and Letters presented Walkowitz with its annual award for a distinguished elderly artist in 1962, three years before his death at the age of eighty-seven.