Moses Soyer ( born Moses Soyer , nee Moses Abramovich Sawyer; December 25, 1899 , Borisoglebsk , Tambov province [2] - September 3, 1974 , New York ), an American artist - XX century realist of Russian origin, twin brother of the artist Rafael Sawyer the older brother of another artist in the Sawyer family, Isaac , a talented painter and, like two older brothers, a follower of realism.
| Moses Sawyer | |
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| Moses soyer | |
![Sculptor Eugene Gershoy [1]. Moses Sawyer 1967. Bronze, 44.3 × 22.0 × 19.3 cm. Smithsonian Museum of Art](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/df/Eugenie_Gershoy_Moses_Soyer.jpg/267px-Eugenie_Gershoy_Moses_Soyer.jpg) Sculptor Eugene Gershoy [1] . Moses Sawyer 1967. Bronze, 44.3 × 22.0 × 19.3 cm. Smithsonian Museum of Art | |
| Birth name | Moses Abramovich Shoar |
| Date of Birth | December 25, 1899 |
| Place of Birth | Borisoglebsk , Tambov province |
| Date of death | September 3, 1974 ( 74) |
| Place of death | Hampton Bays , Suffolk County , Long Island , NY |
| Nationality |  Russian Empire → USA |
| Citizenship |  |
| Genre | painter painter draftsman illustrator engraver |
| Style | realism social realism |
Content
Biography
Moses Sawyer ( 1899 - 1987 ) was born, like his twin brother Rafael ( 1899 - 1987 ), on December 25, 1899, in Borisoglebsk . Father, Abraham [3] , a teacher of Jewish language and literature, who instilled in his sons a taste for high culture from infancy , was forced to leave Russia in 1912 and move with his family to the USA [4] .
The early years
The Sawyers settled in the Bronx , on the then outskirts of New York . The brothers studied in Cooper Union (English) (since 1916 ) and in the League of Art Students in New York (it was necessary to have time to earn a living by one-time auxiliary work). The first solo exhibition of Moses took place in 1926 , and became a step towards receiving a scholarship, on which he was able to go to Europe to improve in art [5] .
US Crisis
During the years of the catastrophic economic crisis in the United States , Moses, like his brother Rafael Sawyer , was greatly assisted by the government's Office of Public Works program, WPA [6] . Moses initially taught drawing classes at the New School for Social Research [7] , New York ; then, by 1940, he executed, together with his brother Raphael , a series of wall paintings ordered by the same Works Progress Administration , in particular, painting in the lobby of the post office in Philadelphia [8] .
Maturity
Moses Sawyer opposed the growing power of abstract art , constantly showing his figurative works at exhibitions, and even gaining the status of a significant figure among social realists . He was elected a member of the Institute of Arts and Literature , 1966 , and before that - the National Academy of Design ( 1963 ). Illustrated a book about ballet. In 1964 he published the volume of the manual for artists - “Painting the Human Figure” / “Painting the Human Figure” [9] .
Died Moses Sawyer, standing behind an easel, during a painting session from nature. This happened on September 3, 1974 .
The Smithsonian Institution’s archive contains a wide variety of documents from Moses Sawyer: sketches, free marginal drawings, illustrations, letters, photographs from exhibitions, from the family’s archives [10] [11] .
Creativity
The cross-cutting theme of the ballet by Moses Sawyer involves an in-depth study of Degas' legacy; and the images of thin, almost intangible girls (ballerinas) in his painting find unexpected roll calls in Soviet Russia, where Nikolai Chernyshev, the senior fellow countryman M. Sawyer in his Tambov province , wrote in an idealizing way.
Moses Sawyer was not an innovator. By faith and truth, he upheld the principles of social realism, the relevance of which for painting was exhausted even in the Zola era (it is interesting that it was Zolya's fellow practitioner in the lyceum, the post-impressionist Paul Cezanne , who already outlined in the painting the paths to other possibilities of owning shape and color in painting) . In fairness, we note that Moses Sawyer in his works created after the Second World War makes his colorful palette lighter and more sonorous [12] .
Museum Collections
- Denver Museum of Art , Denver , Colorado
- National Gallery of Art , Washington , DC
- Los Angeles County Museum of Art , Los Angeles
- MoMA , New York
- Brooklyn Museum
- Portland Museum of Art (Oregon)
- Whitney Museum , New York
Literature
- Krasikova, L.V., Provincial Environment as a Factor in the Formation of an Artist's Personality: Sawyer Brothers // Figures of American Culture from the Russian Empire: a collection of articles based on the results of an exhibition and a scientific conference / Russian Museum / Edited by: T. Melnik; A. Rudakova. - SPb. : Palace Editions, 2009 .-- 240 p. - (Almanac / State. Russian Museum; issue 262). - ISBN 9785933323068 . Archived on April 19, 2015. Archived April 19, 2015 on Wayback Machine
- Soyer, Moses; Crispo, Andrew J .; Allen, George. Moses Soyer: Drawings, Watercolors (an exhibition catalog) . - ACA Galleries, 1972. - 48 p.
Links
- Artcyclopedia.com
- VIDEO 69 works by Moses Sawyer of different years
- Lithograph Three dancers. Harvard University Museum
- Nude with a blue shawl. Oil on Canvas 50.8 × 41 cm
- Dancers. Oil on Canvas 25.7 × 35.6 cm.
- Three brothers. Oil on Canvas 149.9 x 149.9 cm. ( Brooklyn Museum ) [13]
- Heritage gallery
- The phillips collection
- Auction lots at Christie's
- An essay about the Sawyer brothers of Odessa writer Yevgeny Demenk
Notes
- ↑ Gershoy, Eugenie. Moses Soyer, 1967 by Eugenie Gershoy Neopr . Smithsonian Institution. Date of treatment April 12, 2015.
- ↑ Currently, the city of Borisoglebsk is located in the Voronezh region .
- ↑ Avraham Sawyer (Shoar; 1867 - 1940 ), was a teacher of Jewish history and literature and a writer who wrote in Hebrew and Yiddish . Sawyer Brothers / KEE, Volume 8, Count. 407–409 . Electronic Jewish Encyclopedia. Date of treatment April 12, 2015.
- ↑ By 1912, hatred of foreigners was heating up in Russian society in the light of the noisy discussion of the Beilis Case .
- ↑ MOSES SOYER (1899–1974) / Curriculum Vitae . The Phillips Collection. Date of treatment April 12, 2015.
- ↑ The WPA was a tremendous and very successful venture to overcome the consequences of the financial crash of 1929 . Then, in almost every village in the United States, the agency built a new park, bridge or school, which gave jobs and income to millions of unemployed during the Great Depression . They did not forget about the creative workers: artists, for example, were everywhere entrusted with decorating public buildings with frescoes.
- ↑ Artists on WPA. 1935 oil / canvas 91.7 x 107.0 cm. . Smithsonian American Art Museum (2015-04012).
- ↑ Moses Soyer (1899 - 1974), the biography from Web site of Comenos Fine Art . AskART Date of treatment April 12, 2015.
- ↑ Soyer, Moses. Painting the human figure . - Watson-Guptill Publications, 1964. - 160 pages p.
- ↑ 46 sheets of illustrations for the book about Noel Stretfield's ballet (c. 1953) (inaccessible link) . Date of treatment April 10, 2015. Archived April 17, 2015.
- ↑ Fleeting pen drafts
- ↑ Moses Soyer (1899-1974) . Art Experts. Date of treatment April 12, 2015.
- ↑ Soyer, Moses Brooklyn Museum Collections: American Art: Three Brothers . Brooklyn Museum Date of treatment April 12, 2015.