Aristodimos Kaldis
Encyclopedia
Aristodimos Kaldis was an artist and left-wing activist in New York.
It is impossible to think of East Tenth Street and of the gallery and museum scene during the 1950s without including Kaldis in the picture. His friendship with leading members of the New York School
dated from the 1930s. During the 1940s he sometimes supported himself by giving lectures on art and archeology in a room at Carnegie Hall
- with Willem de Kooning
at the slide projector
. These lectures were attended by large numbers of New York artists.
Also during the 1930s he participated with Communist League of America
in organizing the 1934 New York Hotel Strike with B. J. Field and Ben Gitlow. When the union leadership under the latter accepted concessions that were not acceptable to the CLA leadership they were expelled and joined Gitlow's sect, the Workers Communist League, to form a new group called the League for a Revolutionary Workers Party.
However, Kaldis was much more than a somewhat eccentric public personality. He was also a painter, and a good one. Since 1979, the year of his death, there have been several exhibitions of his work, including one in 1985 at the Artists' Choice Museum
. The catalogue, containing memoirs and reproductions of some of his best paintings, is marred only by a caption below a photograph of Kaldis and Philip Pavia, the sculptor that identifies Pavia as Franz Kline
. (Both artists were close friends of Kaldis.)
It is impossible to think of East Tenth Street and of the gallery and museum scene during the 1950s without including Kaldis in the picture. His friendship with leading members of the New York School
New York School
The New York School was an informal group of American poets, painters, dancers, and musicians active in the 1950s, 1960s in New York City...
dated from the 1930s. During the 1940s he sometimes supported himself by giving lectures on art and archeology in a room at Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
- with Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning was a Dutch American abstract expressionist artist who was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands....
at the slide projector
Slide projector
A slide projector is an opto-mechanical device to view photographic slides. Slide projectors were common in the 1950s to the 1970s as a form of entertainment; family members and friends would gather to view slide shows...
. These lectures were attended by large numbers of New York artists.
Also during the 1930s he participated with Communist League of America
Communist League of America
The Communist League of America was founded by James P. Cannon, Max Shachtman and Martin Abern late in 1928 after their expulsion from the Communist Party USA for Trotskyism. The CLA was the United States section of Leon Trotsky's International Left Opposition and initially positioned itself as...
in organizing the 1934 New York Hotel Strike with B. J. Field and Ben Gitlow. When the union leadership under the latter accepted concessions that were not acceptable to the CLA leadership they were expelled and joined Gitlow's sect, the Workers Communist League, to form a new group called the League for a Revolutionary Workers Party.
However, Kaldis was much more than a somewhat eccentric public personality. He was also a painter, and a good one. Since 1979, the year of his death, there have been several exhibitions of his work, including one in 1985 at the Artists' Choice Museum
Artists' Choice Museum
Artists’ Choice Museum in New York City was started in 1976 by many of the same younger artists who were active in the Alliance of Figurative Artists and the Figurative Coops...
. The catalogue, containing memoirs and reproductions of some of his best paintings, is marred only by a caption below a photograph of Kaldis and Philip Pavia, the sculptor that identifies Pavia as Franz Kline
Franz Kline
Franz Jozef Kline was an American painter mainly associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement centered around New York in the 1940s and 1950s. He was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and attended Girard College, an academy in Philadelphia for fatherless boys...
. (Both artists were close friends of Kaldis.)