Abraham Rattner

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Abraham Rattner (born July 8, 1893 or 1895 in Poughkeepsie , Dutchess County , New York , † February 14, 1978 in New York City ) was an American painter of Jewish descent of Expressionism , who dealt with religious subjects in his pictures.

Life

Abraham Rattner was the second of six children of Russian-Jewish immigrants who fled anti-Semitism from the Russian Empire . From 1912 he studied architecture at the George Washington University Washington DC and also took art courses at the Corcoran College of Art and Design. In 1917, thanks to a scholarship, he went to Philadelphia to study painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. During the First World War , he served in the US Army in France from 1917 to 1918 as a camouflage painter. In the second Battle of the Marne (Battle of Reims, July 15 to August 5, 1918) he was injured in the back, which is why he suffered from chronic pain until the end of his life.

In 1919 Rattner resumed his studies in Philadelphia, while also earning his living as an illustrator for magazines. In 1920 he went to Paris , where he studied at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts , the Académie de la Grande Chaumiere and the Académie Ranson. His expressionist style at this time was based on Chaim Soutine (1893–1943). In 1924 Abraham Rattner married the art student and fashion illustrator Bettina Bedwell. She later became the fashion correspondent for the New York News / Chicago Tribune Syndicate in Paris. The Rattners stayed in France until 1939, where Rattner was also confronted with the various new art movements: Cubism , Futurism and Surrealism . He adopted the Cubist style in France and interpreted nature in bold, lively color compositions. He also made contact with the surrealists and the great artists of the time: Pablo Picasso (1881–1973), the architect Le Corbusier (1887–1965) and the writer Henry Miller (1891–1980). In 1927 Abraham Rattner became a member of the Minotaure group, which also included Picasso, Joan Miró (1893–1983), Alberto Giacometti (1901–1966), Le Corbusier, Georges Braque (1882–1963), Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) and Pierre Reverdy (1889–1960) belonged to.

After his return to New York, where he was soon recognized as one of the leading contemporary painters, in the winter of 1940/41 he went on a trip with his friend Henry Miller to the south of the USA as far as New Orleans to get to know the new America. Miller's description and Rattner's illustrations of the trip were published as The Air-Conditioned Nightmare in 1945 . In the same year he took part in the Bel Ami competition with his picture The Temptation of Saint Anthony . In 1947 his wife Bettina Bedwell died of a kidney infection. The death of his wife and the preoccupation with the crimes of the Second World War , the Holocaust and the atomic bombing caused Rattner to give up his artistic style and his attitude to life and to no longer practice his painting for the next few years.

Troubled years followed. From 1947 to 1949 he taught at the New School for Social Research in New York. In 1949 Rattner married Esther Gentle (1899–1991), a New York artist and art dealer. He took on other teaching positions, including at Yale University New Haven, the University of Illinois and Michigan State University . From 1957 Rattner was looking for new forms of expression for his art; he dealt with architecture and made designs for mosaics, tapestries and glass paintings. His most famous work from this period are the stained glass windows of the Chicago Loop Synagogue. After 1960, Rattner, shaped by the indescribable horror of the Holocaust and the war crimes of the Second World War, devoted himself to depicting the history of the Jewish people with their religious and biblical themes in his pictures. His late paintings show in their symbolic power a clear style, which is characterized by the use of lively colors and bold, plunging lines and which still has Cubist echoes. Allen Leepa (1919–2009), Esther Gentle's son and Rattner's stepson and biographer, described Rattner as a "painter of the tragic". In 1965, Henry Miller published his 24-page short story, A Word About Abraham Rattner . The 1970s mark a time when Rattner was honored in many exhibitions. In 1974 Rattner was elected Associate Member ( ANA ) of the National Academy of Design . In 1976 the National Collection of Fine Arts in Washington, DC sponsored an exhibition of his stained glass designs called ... and let there be light . In 1977 Michigan State University awarded him an Honorary Degree for Humanity. Abraham Rattner died of heart failure in New York on February 14, 1978. Most of his works are in the possession of museums in the United States. Abraham Rattner and his wife Esther are buried in Green River Cemetery in East Hampton on Long Island.

In 1958 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters .

Works

  • Procession (1944), oil on canvas, 65.4 × 92.4 cm, Hirshhorn Museum Washington DC
  • Portrait of Henry Miller # 1 (1940), oil on canvas, 38 1/16 × 18 3/16 in., Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art, Tarpon Springs FL
  • Double Portrait (1943), oil on canvas, 38 1/4 × 51 1/4 in., Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art, Tarpon Springs FL
  • In the Mirror No. II (1962), oil on canvas, 99.7 × 80.6 cm, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC
  • The Temptation of Saint Anthony (1945), oil on canvas, 130 × 100 cm, Rome, Vatican Museums
  • The Last Judgment (1953–56), oil on panel, triptych, 94 × 144 in., Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art, Tarpon Springs FL.
  • Let There Be Light And There Was Light, three-part glass window from the Jean Barrillet workshop, Paris, (1958–60), 30 ft. × 40 ft., Chicago Loop Synagogue

Remarks

  1. ↑ The year of birth cannot be clearly determined from the sources.
  2. ^ Nationalacademy.org: Past Academicians "R" / Rattner, Abraham ANA 1974 ( memento of April 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed on July 13, 2015)
  3. ^ Members: Abraham Rattner. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed on April 21, 2019 (here: year of birth 1895).

literature

  • Henry Miller: A Word About Abraham Rattner. J. Fitzsimmons, 1965
  • Samantha Baskind: Encyclopedia of Jewish American Artists. (= Artists of the American mosaic. ) Greenwood Press, Westport 2007, Conn., Pp. 224-226.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Rattner, Abraham
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American expressionism painter
DATE OF BIRTH July 8, 1893 or 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Poughkeepsie , New York
DATE OF DEATH February 14, 1978
Place of death New York City