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Jerome Witkin | |
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| Born | September 13, 1939 |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | The High School of Music & Art Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture Cooper Union Berlin Academy University of Pennsylvania |
| Known for | Painting |
| Movement | Social realism |
| Children | Christian Witkin |
| Family | (twin brother) Joel Peter Witkin |
| Awards | Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowship |
Jerome Witkin (born September 13, 1939) is an American figurative artist whose paintings deal with political, social and cultural themes, [1] along with serious portraiture that melds the sitter's social position with a speaking likeness that reveals inner character. Witkin has been succinctly characterized as "a virtuoso figurative painter whose work mixes elements of the old masters, social realism and Abstract Expressionism ..." [2]
Witkin was born in Brooklyn, New York, the twin brother of photographer Joel Peter Witkin. [1] Recognized as a prodigious talent, at fourteen he entered The High School of Music & Art in New York, and subsequently studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Cooper Union, the Berlin Academy, and the University of Pennsylvania. A Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship enabled him to travel, study and further develop in Europe.
After his return to the United States, Witkin received a Guggenheim Fellowship, began exhibiting at galleries in New York and joined the faculty of the Maryland Institute College of Art. He later taught at the Manchester College of Art in England, and then the Moore College of Art. In 1971, he became a professor of art at Syracuse University. [3]
Witkin's work can be thought of as an interrelationship of three bold explorations:
While his paintings reference the work of the old masters, social realism, and abstract expressionism, Witkin, in a self-deprecating manner, refers to himself as a "cornball humanist". [2] In a fuller explanation of his motivation, Witkin has emphasized, "If this society continues to the next two thousand years, people will be looking at the twentieth century and saying, 'What did artists do about the strange goings-on?'" [4]
Witkin's work is included in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Uffizi, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Hirshhorn Museum. [1] [5]
Witkin is the father of photographer Christian Witkin. [6]
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The history of painting reaches back in time to artifacts and artwork created by pre-historic artists, and spans all cultures. It represents a continuous, though periodically disrupted, tradition from Antiquity. Across cultures, continents, and millennia, the history of painting consists of an ongoing river of creativity that continues into the 21st century. Until the early 20th century it relied primarily on representational, religious and classical motifs, after which time more purely abstract and conceptual approaches gained favor.
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Joel-Peter Witkin is an American photographer who lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His work often deals with themes such as death, corpses, often featuring ornately decorated photographic models, including people with dwarfism, transgender and intersex persons, as well as people living with a range of physical features. Witkin is often praised for presenting these figures in poses which celebrate and honor their physiques in an elevated, artistic manner. Witkin's complex tableaux vivants often recall religious episodes or classical paintings.
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Norman Wilfred Lewis was an American painter, scholar, and teacher. Lewis, who was African-American and of Bermudian descent, was associated with abstract expressionism, and used representational strategies to focus on black urban life and his community's struggles.
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American Figurative Expressionism is a 20th-century visual art style or movement that first took hold in Boston, and later spread throughout the United States. Critics dating back to the origins of Expressionism have often found it hard to define. One description, however, classifies it as a Humanist philosophy, since it's human-centered and rationalist. Its formal approach to the handling of paint and space is often considered a defining feature, too, as is its radical, rather than reactionary, commitment to the figure.
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Walter Henry "Jack" Beal Jr. was an American realist painter.
Boston Expressionism is an arts movement marked by emotional directness, dark humor, social and spiritual themes, and a tendency toward figuration strong enough that Boston Figurative Expressionism is sometimes used as an alternate term to distinguish it from abstract expressionism, with which it overlapped.
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