Gabriel Laderman
Encyclopedia
Gabriel Laderman was a New York painter and an early and important exponent of the Figurative
revival of the 1950s and '60s.
He studied with a number of leading American painters, including Hofmann
, de Kooning
, and Rothko
.
's Pedagogical Sketchbook
, which at the time was available only in the original Bauhaus
edition in German.
In the summer of 1949 he went to Provincetown and studied with Hans Hofmann
. Since he already knew about abstract expressionist
painting (Willem de Kooning
had had his first show) he began painting in that tradition, informed with what Hofmann had taught about forming.
He met de Kooning that summer and began to show him his work in September of that year on a regular basis, while also attending Brooklyn College
where he studied with Ad Reinhardt
, Alfred Russell
, Mark Rothko
, Burgoyne Diller
, Jimmy Ernst
, Stanley William Hayter
and Robert J. Wolff (the chairman of the department).
He also began to go to Hayter's Atelier 17, which he used as a shop for printing his engraved and etched plates.
About his Brooklyn College years, Laderman said:
After graduating from Brooklyn, he spent a year as a graduate student in art history in the New York University Institute of Fine Arts. There, he studied Asian art and 14th century Italian art. Both traditions influenced his later work.
In 1955, after two years in the army, he went to Cornell University
for his MFA
, with an assistantship in painting. During his time there, he began to try to paint from nature with less distortion and invention.
until 1967 when he began teaching at Queens College, CUNY.
From 1967 through 1996 he was artist in residence and lectured at many schools and museums, including Princeton University
, Yale University
, Bennington College
, Philadelphia College of Art, Pennsylvania Academy, University of Pennsylvania
, the Tyler School of Art
, Moore College of Art, Boston University
, The Boston Museum School
, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
, Amherst College
, Stanford University
, Kansas City Art Institute
, Art School of Surabaya, Art Center Jakarta, USIS
centers in Japan in Tokyo
, Nagoy, Sapporo and Fukuoka
, Royal College of Art
, Bangkok, Victorian College of Art, Melbourne; College Ballarat, Indiana University
, Bloomington, Louisiana State University
, Arizona State, American University
, Skowhegan, Chautauqua
, the Art Students League of New York
, and the Yale-Norfolk School.
He retired from teaching in 1996 but continued to paint.
Starting with a show of engravings and intaglios at the The Tanager Gallery in 1960 his work was painted from nature and always representational.
Starting in 1962, he exhibited with the Schoelkopf Gallery until the gallery was closed, due to the death of its proprietor.
Subsequently, he showed with Peter Tatistcheff.
His work, starting in the 1980s was usually of the figure including a number of major paintings with subject matter. The early subject matter paintings were all about crimes, and several were based on the Maigret series of detective novels by the Belgian author Georges Simenon
, including the series "Murder and its Consequences", and his most famous painting "The House of Death and Life" .
Figurative art
Figurative art, sometimes written as figurativism, describes artwork—particularly paintings and sculptures—which are clearly derived from real object sources, and are therefore by definition representational.-Definition:...
revival of the 1950s and '60s.
He studied with a number of leading American painters, including Hofmann
Hans Hofmann
Hans Hofmann was a German-born American abstract expressionist painter.-Biography:Hofmann was born in Weißenburg, Bavaria on March 21, 1880, the son of Theodor and Franziska Hofmann. When he was six he moved with his family to Munich...
, de Kooning
Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning was a Dutch American abstract expressionist artist who was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands....
, and Rothko
Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko, born Marcus Rothkowitz , was a Russian-born American painter. He is classified as an abstract expressionist, although he himself rejected this label, and even resisted classification as an "abstract painter".- Childhood :Mark Rothko was born in Dvinsk, Vitebsk Province, Russian...
.
Education
In 1948 he began by doing the exercises in Paul KleePaul Klee
Paul Klee was born in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland, and is considered both a German and a Swiss painter. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. He was, as well, a student of orientalism...
's Pedagogical Sketchbook
Pedagogical Sketchbook
Pedagogical Sketchbook is a book by Paul Klee. It is based on his extensive lectures on visual form at Bauhaus Staatliche Art School where he was a teacher in between 1921-1931....
, which at the time was available only in the original Bauhaus
Bauhaus
', commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building".The Bauhaus school was founded by...
edition in German.
In the summer of 1949 he went to Provincetown and studied with Hans Hofmann
Hans Hofmann
Hans Hofmann was a German-born American abstract expressionist painter.-Biography:Hofmann was born in Weißenburg, Bavaria on March 21, 1880, the son of Theodor and Franziska Hofmann. When he was six he moved with his family to Munich...
. Since he already knew about abstract expressionist
Abstract expressionism
Abstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
painting (Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning was a Dutch American abstract expressionist artist who was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands....
had had his first show) he began painting in that tradition, informed with what Hofmann had taught about forming.
He met de Kooning that summer and began to show him his work in September of that year on a regular basis, while also attending Brooklyn College
Brooklyn College
Brooklyn College is a senior college of the City University of New York, located in Brooklyn, New York, United States.Established in 1930 by the New York City Board of Higher Education, the College had its beginnings as the Downtown Brooklyn branches of Hunter College and the City College of New...
where he studied with Ad Reinhardt
Ad Reinhardt
Adolph Frederick Reinhardt was an Abstract painter active in New York beginning in the 1930s and continuing through the 1960s. He was a member of the American Abstract Artists and was a part of the movement centered around the Betty Parsons Gallery that became known as Abstract Expressionism...
, Alfred Russell
Alfred Russell (artist)
Alfred Russell was an artist who was a member of the early New York school of Abstract Expressionist. He exhibited in Paris and New York along with such well known painters as Willem De Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Ad Reinhardt and Mark Rothko...
, Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko, born Marcus Rothkowitz , was a Russian-born American painter. He is classified as an abstract expressionist, although he himself rejected this label, and even resisted classification as an "abstract painter".- Childhood :Mark Rothko was born in Dvinsk, Vitebsk Province, Russian...
, Burgoyne Diller
Burgoyne Diller
Burgoyne A. Diller was an American abstract painter. Many of his best-known works are characterized by orthogonal geometric forms that reflect his strong interest in the De Stijl movement and the work of Piet Mondrian in particular...
, Jimmy Ernst
Jimmy Ernst
Jimmy Ernst was an American painter born in Germany.-Early life:Jimmy Ernst was born in 1920 in Cologne, Germany, the son of surrealist painter Max Ernst and Luise Straus, a well-known art historian and journalist. His parents divorced in 1922 and Ernst staying with his mother in Cologne...
, Stanley William Hayter
Stanley William Hayter
Stanley William Hayter , CBE was a British painter and printmaker associated in the 1930s with Surrealism and from 1940 onward with Abstract Expressionism. Regarded as one of the most significant printmakers of the 20th century, in 1927 Hayter founded the legendary Atelier 17 studio in Paris...
and Robert J. Wolff (the chairman of the department).
He also began to go to Hayter's Atelier 17, which he used as a shop for printing his engraved and etched plates.
About his Brooklyn College years, Laderman said:
- "The school was a hot bed of abstract paintingAbstract artAbstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...
radicalism. One of the major buzzwords was for us to try to get "on the idea level." That meant having a pictorial idea which would generate work. It was clear that my teachers at Brooklyn and also both de Kooning and Hayter did not believe that they had to go through the motions of imitating recent radical art. They were going out on their own and inventing new art. All of them, though, believed that there were pictorial actions which guided art making and were required to validate the work. But those actions could be unheard of ones, or ideas imported from elsewhere and other forms. Russell had us not only drawing in the Natural History museumAmerican Museum of Natural HistoryThe American Museum of Natural History , located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States, is one of the largest and most celebrated museums in the world...
, but also highly touted the value of drawing parked cars, looking through the windows into the internal spaces, and those as seen in a second car through a first one. Reinhardt made a trip around the world and came back with slides of Islamic architectureIslamic architectureIslamic architecture encompasses a wide range of both secular and religious styles from the foundation of Islam to the present day, influencing the design and construction of buildings and structures in Islamic culture....
, often severely symmetrical, but with Arabic calligraphy incised, which had no symmetry, since it was excerpted from the Koran. He also brought back slides of the interiors of Hindu and Buddhist temples that were so dark it was almost impossible to make out the figures. We understood his paintings, both because we could see their actions, and because he made his ideational sources clear through the images he showed in school and at his lectures. I also was one of the youngest members of the artist's club, which started while I was in college on the top floor of the building above Atelier 17. This was the abstract expressionist hangout, and it was where the members of the movement displayed their ideas and publicly disagreed with one another."
After graduating from Brooklyn, he spent a year as a graduate student in art history in the New York University Institute of Fine Arts. There, he studied Asian art and 14th century Italian art. Both traditions influenced his later work.
In 1955, after two years in the army, he went to Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
for his MFA
MFA
MFA may refer to:An academic degree or professional field:* Masters of Finance and Accounting* Master of Financial Analysis* Master of Fine Arts* Material Flow Accounting* Material Flow AnalysisA concept or phrase:* Made For Ads...
, with an assistantship in painting. During his time there, he began to try to paint from nature with less distortion and invention.
Teaching
In 1957 he was appointed Instructor in art at SUNY, New Paltz. After two years at New Paltz he was offered a raise in rank, but chose to return to New York where he taught at Pratt InstitutePratt Institute
Pratt Institute is a private art college in New York City located in Brooklyn, New York, with satellite campuses in Manhattan and Utica. Pratt is one of the leading undergraduate art schools in the United States and offers programs in Architecture, Graphic Design, History of Art and Design,...
until 1967 when he began teaching at Queens College, CUNY.
From 1967 through 1996 he was artist in residence and lectured at many schools and museums, including Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, Bennington College
Bennington College
Bennington College is a liberal arts college located in Bennington, Vermont, USA. The college was founded in 1932 as a women's college and became co-educational in 1969.-History:-Early years:...
, Philadelphia College of Art, Pennsylvania Academy, University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
, the Tyler School of Art
Tyler School of Art
The Stella Elkins Tyler School of Art, usually just referred to as Tyler School of Art is Temple University's school of art, which confers BFA and MFA degrees. The school was originally founded by sculptors Stella Elkins Tyler and Boris Blai on a separate 14-acre estate in Elkins Park...
, Moore College of Art, Boston University
Boston University
Boston University is a private research university located in Boston, Massachusetts. With more than 4,000 faculty members and more than 31,000 students, Boston University is one of the largest private universities in the United States and one of Boston's largest employers...
, The Boston Museum School
School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is an undergraduate and graduate college located in Boston, Massachusetts, dedicated to the visual arts. It is affiliated with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs in partnership with Tufts University...
, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, is one of the largest museums in the United States, attracting over one million visitors a year. It contains over 450,000 works of art, making it one of the most comprehensive collections in the Americas...
, Amherst College
Amherst College
Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009...
, Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
, Kansas City Art Institute
Kansas City Art Institute
The Kansas City Art Institute is a private, independent, four-year college of fine arts and design founded in 1885 in Kansas City, Missouri....
, Art School of Surabaya, Art Center Jakarta, USIS
USIS
USIS may refer to:* United States Information Service, the overseas name for the United States Information Agency* United States Immigration Service, a name sometimes used in the past, possibly both formally and informally at different times, to refer to at least one of the many U.S. federal...
centers in Japan in Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
, Nagoy, Sapporo and Fukuoka
Fukuoka
Fukuoka most often refers to the capital city of Fukuoka Prefecture.It can also refer to:-Locations:* Fukuoka, Gifu, a town in Gifu Prefecture, Japan* Fukuoka, Toyama, a town in Toyama Prefecture, Japan...
, Royal College of Art
Royal College of Art
The Royal College of Art is an art school located in London, United Kingdom. It is the world’s only wholly postgraduate university of art and design, offering the degrees of Master of Arts , Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy...
, Bangkok, Victorian College of Art, Melbourne; College Ballarat, Indiana University
Indiana University
Indiana University is a multi-campus public university system in the state of Indiana, United States. Indiana University has a combined student body of more than 100,000 students, including approximately 42,000 students enrolled at the Indiana University Bloomington campus and approximately 37,000...
, Bloomington, Louisiana State University
Louisiana State University
Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, most often referred to as Louisiana State University, or LSU, is a public coeducational university located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The University was founded in 1853 in what is now known as Pineville, Louisiana, under the name...
, Arizona State, American University
American University
American University is a private, Methodist, liberal arts, and research university in Washington, D.C. The university was chartered by an Act of Congress on December 5, 1892 as "The American University", which was approved by President Benjamin Harrison on February 24, 1893...
, Skowhegan, Chautauqua
Chautauqua
Chautauqua was an adult education movement in the United States, highly popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Chautauqua assemblies expanded and spread throughout rural America until the mid-1920s. The Chautauqua brought entertainment and culture for the whole community, with...
, the Art Students League of New York
Art Students League of New York
The Art Students League of New York is an art school located on West 57th Street in New York City. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists, and has maintained for over 130 years a tradition of offering reasonably priced classes on a...
, and the Yale-Norfolk School.
He retired from teaching in 1996 but continued to paint.
Paintings and exhibitions
His first exhibited painting, in 1949, was abstract expressionist, in the vein of de Kooning's work.Starting with a show of engravings and intaglios at the The Tanager Gallery in 1960 his work was painted from nature and always representational.
Starting in 1962, he exhibited with the Schoelkopf Gallery until the gallery was closed, due to the death of its proprietor.
Subsequently, he showed with Peter Tatistcheff.
His work, starting in the 1980s was usually of the figure including a number of major paintings with subject matter. The early subject matter paintings were all about crimes, and several were based on the Maigret series of detective novels by the Belgian author Georges Simenon
Georges Simenon
Georges Joseph Christian Simenon was a Belgian writer. A prolific author who published nearly 200 novels and numerous short works, Simenon is best known for the creation of the fictional detective Maigret.-Early life and education:...
, including the series "Murder and its Consequences", and his most famous painting "The House of Death and Life" .
Selected museum exhibitions
- Whitney Museum of American ArtWhitney Museum of American ArtThe Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...
- Museum of Fine Arts, BostonMuseum of Fine Arts, BostonThe Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, is one of the largest museums in the United States, attracting over one million visitors a year. It contains over 450,000 works of art, making it one of the most comprehensive collections in the Americas...
- Art Institute of ChicagoArt Institute of ChicagoThe School of the Art Institute of Chicago is one of America's largest accredited independent schools of art and design, located in the Loop in Chicago, Illinois. It is associated with the museum of the same name, and "The Art Institute of Chicago" or "Chicago Art Institute" often refers to either...
- Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts
Awards and honors
- National Academy of DesignNational Academy of DesignThe National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts, founded in New York City as the National Academy of Design – known simply as the "National Academy" – is an honorary association of American artists founded in 1825 by Samuel F. B. Morse, Asher B. Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E...
— Altman Prize - 1993 National Academy of DesignNational Academy of DesignThe National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts, founded in New York City as the National Academy of Design – known simply as the "National Academy" – is an honorary association of American artists founded in 1825 by Samuel F. B. Morse, Asher B. Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E...
— Thomas R. Proctor PrizeThomas R. Proctor PrizeThe Thomas R. Proctor Prize is a set of awards given annually by the National Academy of Design in the United States. Protor prizes are awarded annually for sculpture and portraiture.... - 1990 Ingram-Merrill Award
- 1989 Rockefeller FoundationRockefeller FoundationThe Rockefeller Foundation is a prominent philanthropic organization and private foundation based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The preeminent institution established by the six-generation Rockefeller family, it was founded by John D. Rockefeller , along with his son John D. Rockefeller, Jr...
, Resident Artist at Bellagio - 1988 Queens College Presidential Fellowship,
- 1988 Guggenheim FellowshipGuggenheim FellowshipGuggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
- 1988 CUNY Research Foundation
- 1987 National Endowment for the Arts Senior Fellowship
- 1986 CUNY Research Award
- 1983 Ingram-Merrill Award
- 1982 National Endowment for the Arts Senior Fellowship, CUNY Research Award
- 1975 Dept. of the Interior — Bicentennial Landscape Commission, Ingram-Merrill Award
- 1973 CUNY Research Award
- 1962 Fulbright Award to Italy
- 1960 YaddoYaddoYaddo is an artists' community located on a 400 acre estate in Saratoga Springs, New York. Its mission is "to nurture the creative process by providing an opportunity for artists to work without interruption in a supportive environment."...
Fellowship - 1959 Yaddo Fellowship, Louis Comfort Tiffany Award
Selected collections
- Andrew Dickson White Museum, Cornell UniversityCornell UniversityCornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
- Archdiocese of Baton Rouge, Louisiana
- Brandeis UniversityBrandeis UniversityBrandeis University is an American private research university with a liberal arts focus. It is located in the southwestern corner of Waltham, Massachusetts, nine miles west of Boston. The University has an enrollment of approximately 3,200 undergraduate and 2,100 graduate students. In 2011, it...
, Rose Art MuseumRose Art MuseumThe Rose Art Museum, founded in 1961, is a part of Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, USA. Named after benefactors Edward and Bertha Rose, it offers temporary exhibitions, and it displays and houses works of art from the Brandeis University art collections... - Chicago Art Institute
- Chase Manhattan Bank
- Cleveland Museum of ArtCleveland Museum of ArtThe Cleveland Museum of Art is an art museum situated in the Wade Park District, in the University Circle neighborhood on Cleveland's east side. Internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egyptian art, the museum houses a diverse permanent collection of more than 43,000...
- Davidson Collection
- Edmund P. Pillsbury
- Fidelity Bank, Philadelphia
- FMC Corporation, Chicago
- Malcolm Holtzman
- Glenn C. Janss Collection, Boise Art Museum
- Innes Collection, Charlottesville
- The Jalane and Richard Davidson Collection, Art Institute of ChicagoArt Institute of ChicagoThe School of the Art Institute of Chicago is one of America's largest accredited independent schools of art and design, located in the Loop in Chicago, Illinois. It is associated with the museum of the same name, and "The Art Institute of Chicago" or "Chicago Art Institute" often refers to either...
- Jane Livingston
- Mead Art MuseumMead Art MuseumMead Art Museum is an art museum associated with Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts and is a member of Museums10.The Mead Art Museum has a wide ranging collection of over 16,000 items, with a particular strength in American art, including notable works of the Hudson River School and woodcut...
, Amherst, MA - Montclair State College
- Museum of Fine Arts, BostonMuseum of Fine Arts, BostonThe Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, is one of the largest museums in the United States, attracting over one million visitors a year. It contains over 450,000 works of art, making it one of the most comprehensive collections in the Americas...
- National Academy of DesignNational Academy of DesignThe National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts, founded in New York City as the National Academy of Design – known simply as the "National Academy" – is an honorary association of American artists founded in 1825 by Samuel F. B. Morse, Asher B. Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E...
, NYC - National Gallery of ArtNational Gallery of ArtThe National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden is a national art museum, located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW, in Washington, DC...
, Washington, DC - National Museum (Muzium Negara), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
- National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC
- Robert NatkinRobert NatkinRobert Natkin was an American born abstract painter whose work is associated with Abstract expressionism, Color field painting, and Lyrical Abstraction....
- Sierra ClubSierra ClubThe Sierra Club is the oldest, largest, and most influential grassroots environmental organization in the United States. It was founded on May 28, 1892, in San Francisco, California, by the conservationist and preservationist John Muir, who became its first president...
- Spurzem Collection
- Uris-Hilton Hotels
- Weatherspoon Gallery, NC
- William BaileyWilliam BaileyWilliam Bailey was an American actor. He appeared in 222 films between 1911 and 1959. Born in Omaha, Nebraska, Bailey died in Hollywood, California in 1962 at the age of 76.-Selected filmography:...
External links
- Gabriel Laderman: Unconventional Realist
- Gabriel Laderman, Poetic Realist
- Gabriel Laderman at Tatistcheff (a review)
- Gimlet Eye Art: Laderman
- Essay by Gabriel Laderman:"Learning to Draw Without a Master"
- Gabriel Laderman's Art Blog
- New York Times Obituary: Gabriel Laderman, Painter of Figurative Art, Dies at 81
- The New Republic Obituary: Honoring Gabriel Laderman, who wielded a battering ram on behalf of beauty