Irwin Rubin (1930–April 8, 2006) was an American artist and educator known for his colorfully painted wood constructions.

Biography

Irwin Rubin was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1930. He studied at the

Brooklyn Museum Art School The Brooklyn Museum Art School was a non-degree-granting professional school that opened at the Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn, New York in the summer of 1941. The Brooklyn Museum Art School provided instruction for amateur artists as well until Janua ...

, the

Cooper Union The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (Cooper Union) is a private college at Cooper Square in New York City. Peter Cooper founded the institution in 1859 after learning about the government-supported École Polytechnique in ...

, and at the Yale University School of Art and Architecture, where he studied under

Josef Albers Josef Albers (; ; March 19, 1888March 25, 1976) was a German-born artist and educator. The first living artist to be given a solo show at MoMA and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, he taught at the Bauhaus and Black Mountain College, ...

. Rubin died in Brooklyn, NY in 2006.

Artistic career

Rubin began working with paper collage in 1953. During his early artistic career he did extensive research into the archival properties of collage materials and adhesives, and published his studies in ''

Arts The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both hi ...

'' magazine, and in Bernard Chaet's ''Artists at Work.'' In the 1960s, Rubin made brightly colored, painted wood constructions. He worked with pegs and blocks in low relief to explore color phenomena spatially, including the effects of primary colors reflected upon white surfaces. Rubin was represented by the

Bertha Schaefer Gallery Bertha Schaefer (1895–1971) was an American designer and gallery director, she was known for her furniture designs, and as an interior designer. Biography Schaefer was born in Yazoo City, Mississippi in 1895. Her father Emil Schaefer was a ref ...

, where he participated in several group exhibitions that focused on hybrid forms, featuring young artists working between painting and sculpture. His work was also included in "New Directions" at

Pace Gallery The Pace Gallery is an American contemporary and modern art gallery with 9 locations worldwide. It was founded in Boston by Arne Glimcher in 1960. His son, Marc Glimcher, is now president and CEO. Pace Gallery operates in New York, London, Hong ...

, a group show with construction and assemblage contributions by

Jim Dine Jim Dine (born June 16, 1935 in Cincinnati, Ohio) is an American artist whose œuvre extends over sixty years. Dine’s work includes painting, drawing, printmaking (in many forms including lithographs, etchings, gravure, intaglio, woodcuts, l ...

, Bernard Langlais, and

Louise Nevelson Louise Nevelson (September 23, 1899 – April 17, 1988) was an American sculptor known for her monumental, monochromatic, wooden wall pieces and outdoor sculptures. Born in the Poltava Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Kyiv Oblast, ...

Collections

Rubin's work is held in the permanent collections of the

Sheldon Museum of Art The Sheldon Museum of Art is an art museum in the city of Lincoln, in the state of Nebraska in the Midwestern United States. Its collection focuses on 19th- and 20th-century art. History Sheldon Art Association In 1888, The Sheldon Art Assoc ...

in Lincoln, NE, the

Yale University Art Gallery The Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG) is the oldest university art museum in the Western Hemisphere. It houses a major encyclopedic collection of art in several interconnected buildings on the campus of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. ...

in New Haven, CT, the

RISD Museum The Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD Museum) is an art museum integrated with the Rhode Island School of Design, in Providence, Rhode Island, US. The museum was co-founded with the school in 1877, and still shares multiple build ...

in Providence, RI, and at the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, New York, NY.

Teaching career

Rubin held teaching posts at the

University of Texas, Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

Florida State University Florida State University (FSU) is a public research university in Tallahassee, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida. Founded in 1851, it is located on the oldest continuous site of higher education in the st ...

, and at

in New York City. Rubin taught in the Architecture department at

UT Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

in the mid 1950s, where he instructed Color and Freehand Drawing courses alongside

John Hejduk John Quentin Hejduk (July 19, 1929 – July 3, 2000) was an American architect, artist and educator of Czech origin who spent much of his life in New York City. Hejduk is noted for having had a profound interest in the fundamental issues of shap ...

, Robert Slutzky and others, as part of a group of faculty known as the Texas Rangers. In the 1960s and 70s, Rubin taught Freehand Drawing to Architecture students at Cooper Union, under the leadership of

. Artwork created in Rubin's Freehand Drawing course have been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and reproduced in ''Education of an Architect: A Point of View'', the MoMA exhibition catalog, in Cynthia Dantzic's ''Design Dimensions: An Introduction to the Visual Surface'' (Prentice Hall, 1990) and in Alexander Caragonne's ''The Texas Rangers: Notes from an Architectural Underground'', (MIT Press, 1995).

References

External links

The Irwin Rubin Archive
at www.irwinrubin.com
The Student Work Collection
on the

Irwin S Chani
School of Architecture Archive
archswc.cooper.edu
Yale University Art Gallery Collection
at artgallery.yale.edu
Sheldon Museum of Art Collection
at sheldonartmuseum.org
RISD Museum Collection
at risdmuseum.org
The Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum Collection
at www.si.edu
Education of an Architect, MoMA Exhibition Archive
an
Catalog
at www.moma.org {{DEFAULTSORT:Rubin, Irwin 1930 births 2006 deaths American contemporary artists Artists from Brooklyn Brooklyn Museum Art School alumni Cooper Union alumni Yale School of Art alumni Florida State University faculty University of Texas at Austin faculty Cooper Union faculty