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Raphael Soyer
1899–1987
BirthplaceBorisogliebsk, Russia
Death placeNew York, New York, United States of America
BiographyBest known for picturing poverty-stricken victims of the Great Depression in New York City, Raphael Soyer created images of everyday urban life and of the nude female body. As a boy Soyer immigrated to the United States in 1912 with his Russian-Jewish family, who encouraged his interest in drawing; both Soyer's twin Moses (1899–1974) and their younger brother Isaac (1902–81) also went on to become artists. When the family settled in New York City in 1914, Raphael took classes at the Cooper Union, followed by study at the prestigious National Academy of Design and at the progressive Art Students League, where his teachers included Guy Pène du Bois (1884–1958), a painter of modern figural subjects. However, he later claimed that his visits to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art were the most important component of his artistic education.
In 1917, Soyer began making etchings on a small table-top press, working in his family's tenement home. Three years later, he began to make lithographs. From the first, he was drawn to the gritty urban subjects that engaged many of New York's more progressive artists. Supporting himself with odd jobs, he pursued both painting and printmaking and soon became associated with the so-called Fourteenth Street School, a group of artists, including Pène du Bois, Peggy Bacon, Reginald Marsh, and Kenneth Hayes Miller, who were committed to portraying ordinary New York City life. In 1926, Soyer made the first of several extended visits to Europe; that year, his work was included in the independent "Salons of America" exhibition, and the following year he exhibited at the Whitney Studio Club (predecessor of the Whitney Museum of American Art). In 1929, New York's Daniel Gallery gave Soyer his first solo exhibition and by the early 1930s he was exhibiting works at important annual exhibitions at venues nationwide. In the 1930s he worked in the federally sponsored artists' relief projects known as the WPA and he also became active in the leftist artists' movement, serving for example in the American Artists' Congress, a labor-rights organization.
Before 1929, Soyer created images of family and friends, self-portraits, and scenes around his Manhattan neighborhood. Thereafter he drew his most characteristic subjects from the effects of the Great Depression on ordinary people. After his marriage in 1931, he also began to focus on the female nude and on scenes of generic women in ordinary domestic surroundings and in public places.
Soyer began teaching at the John Reed Club in 1930 and taught at several New York institutions, including the National Academy of Design, into the 1960s. With the rise of large-scale, abstract art in the 1950s, the figural tradition represented by Soyer and other artists of his generation fell out of favor. Today, however, Soyer is regarded as a major American realist figural artist of the twentieth century.
In 1917, Soyer began making etchings on a small table-top press, working in his family's tenement home. Three years later, he began to make lithographs. From the first, he was drawn to the gritty urban subjects that engaged many of New York's more progressive artists. Supporting himself with odd jobs, he pursued both painting and printmaking and soon became associated with the so-called Fourteenth Street School, a group of artists, including Pène du Bois, Peggy Bacon, Reginald Marsh, and Kenneth Hayes Miller, who were committed to portraying ordinary New York City life. In 1926, Soyer made the first of several extended visits to Europe; that year, his work was included in the independent "Salons of America" exhibition, and the following year he exhibited at the Whitney Studio Club (predecessor of the Whitney Museum of American Art). In 1929, New York's Daniel Gallery gave Soyer his first solo exhibition and by the early 1930s he was exhibiting works at important annual exhibitions at venues nationwide. In the 1930s he worked in the federally sponsored artists' relief projects known as the WPA and he also became active in the leftist artists' movement, serving for example in the American Artists' Congress, a labor-rights organization.
Before 1929, Soyer created images of family and friends, self-portraits, and scenes around his Manhattan neighborhood. Thereafter he drew his most characteristic subjects from the effects of the Great Depression on ordinary people. After his marriage in 1931, he also began to focus on the female nude and on scenes of generic women in ordinary domestic surroundings and in public places.
Soyer began teaching at the John Reed Club in 1930 and taught at several New York institutions, including the National Academy of Design, into the 1960s. With the rise of large-scale, abstract art in the 1950s, the figural tradition represented by Soyer and other artists of his generation fell out of favor. Today, however, Soyer is regarded as a major American realist figural artist of the twentieth century.