D. Wigmore Fine Art, Inc.

ABRAHAM WALKOWITZ (1880-1965)

Available Work | Biography

Modernism 1913-1950 | Realism of the 1930s & 1940s | Abstraction of the 1930s & 1940s | Post-War | Selected Biographies

Abraham Walkowitz was one of the first generation of American modernists. He experimented with several different styles and subjects, and his paintings combine elements of geometric abstraction with an emphasis on the expression of motion through line.

Born in Siberia on March 28, 1878, Abraham Walkowitz was the son of a rabbi. Fearful that her son would be drafted into the Czar’s army as soon as he came of age, Etta Walkowitz settled upon emigration to the United States as a means of salvation for her family. The family settled in the Lower East Side of New York City.

Walkowitz thrived in his new environment. He was enrolled in public school and also attended classes held by immigrant scholars, musicians, and artists. He studied the violin and began to draw in chalk on any available surface.

At age fourteen Walkowitz began formal study with Walter Shirlaw at the Artist’s Institute. He next attended the National Academy of Design for two years, where he received academic training under in life drawing, etching, and painting; concurrently, he studied anatomy at the Lower Fifth Avenue Hospital. In 1904 he won the Elliott Bronze Medal in Life Drawing from the National Academy of Design.

From 1900 to 1906 Walkowitz taught at the Educational Alliance to earn money towards a trip to Europe. During this time he exhibited his work in various New York institutions, including the National Academy. In 1906 Walkowitz traveled to Paris, studying briefly at the Académie Julian, where he was a classmate of Max Weber. Through Weber, Walkowitz was introduced to the artistic circle of Leo and Gertrude Stein, where he became acquainted with the works of painters such as Cezanne, Matisse, Rousseau and Picasso. His European paintings make a break from his early dark palette and demonstrate his exposure to Post-Impressionist ideas.

In 1907, Walkowitz returned to New York City, where he was an early promoter of modern art. He had his first one-man show at the Haas Gallery on Madison Avenue in 1908. From 1912 to 1917, he exhibited regularly at Alfred Stieglitz’s 291 Gallery. He was known as part of “The Stieglitz Quartet” with Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, and John Marin. Eleven of his paintings were included in the 1913 New York Armory Show. Edith Halpert had an exhibition of his still lifes at the Downtown Gallery in 1930.

Stylistically, Walkowitz’s paintings included fauvist-inspired still lifes, compositions of people strolling in parks and woods, futuristic paeans to New York City skyscrapers, fluid dance-inspired improvisations, and works of social realism, painted during the 1920s and 1930s.

Walkowitz remained active in the New York City art scene throughout the 1940s and 1950s. He encouraged young artists and introduced them to dealers and collectors. His work was the subject of a major retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum in 1939. He died in Brooklyn in 1965. Walkowitz’s work is included in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago; the Brooklyn Museum; the Boston Museum of Fine Arts; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Museum of Modern Art; the Philadelphia Museum; the Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; and the Whitney Museum of American Art.