Isaac Soyer (April 26, 1902 – July 8, 1981) was a Russian-born American

social realist Social realism is the term used for work produced by painters, printmakers, photographers, writers and filmmakers that aims to draw attention to the real socio-political conditions of the working class as a means to critique the power structure ...

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

and educator. His art work often portrayed

working-class The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colou ...

people of

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

in his paintings.

Biography

He was born as Isaac Schoar on April 26, 1902, in Russia. He was the fourth of six children; his older twin brothers Moses Soyer and Raphael Soyer were also painters. Their father, Abraham Shauer, a

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

scholar, writer and teacher, raised his six children in an intellectual environment in which much emphasis was placed on academic and artistic pursuits. Their mother, Bella, was an embroiderer. Their cousin was painter and meteorologist Joshua Zalman Holland. Due to the many difficulties for the Jewish population in the late Russian Empire, the Soyer family was forced to emigrate in 1912 to the United States, where they ultimately settled in

the Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

. The family name changed from Schoar to Soyer during immigration. Isaac Soyer studied at the

National Academy of Design The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the fin ...

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 ...

Educational Alliance Educational Alliance is a leading social institution that has been serving communities in New York City’s Lower Manhattan since 1889. It provides multi-generational programs and services in education, health and wellness, arts and culture, and c ...

and studied in Paris and Madrid. Soyer painted portraits of friends and relatives and vignettes of working-class life. He taught classes at the

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...

Federal Art Project The Federal Art Project (1935–1943) was a New Deal program to fund the visual arts in the United States. Under national director Holger Cahill, it was one of five Federal Project Number One projects sponsored by the Works Progress Administrati ...

. Soyer's work ''Employment Agency'' (1937) reveals the social realities of the years of the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

. It features the image of a Black woman and three white men waiting for a job interview response. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Soyer worked at

Bell Aircraft Corporation The Bell Aircraft Corporation was an American aircraft manufacturer, a builder of several types of fighter aircraft for World War II but most famous for the Bell X-1, the first supersonic aircraft, and for the development and production of many i ...

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from South ...

. Soyer was an art educator at a number of institutions. From 1941 until 1947 he taught at Albright Art School at the University of Buffalo; and from 1947 until 1971 at Brooklyn Museum Art School. He additionally taught at

Art Institute of Buffalo The Art Institute of Buffalo was an art school in Buffalo, New York. It opened its doors in 1931, and continued to produce graduates until the institute closed in 1956. The faculty included a number of well-known artists. Many students of the ins ...

Niagara Falls Niagara Falls () is a group of three waterfalls at the southern end of Niagara Gorge, spanning the border between the province of Ontario in Canada and the state of New York in the United States. The largest of the three is Horseshoe Falls, ...

Art School, Educational Alliance,

New School for Social Research The New School for Social Research (NSSR) is a graduate-level educational institution that is one of the divisions of The New School in New York City, United States. The university was founded in 1919 as a home for progressive era thinkers. NSSR ...

(1968),

Art Students League of New York The Art Students League of New York is an art school at 215 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists. Although artists may stu ...

(1969).

Death and legacy

Soyer died of a

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which may tr ...

at Lenox Hill Hospital on July 8, 1981, at age 79; he was residing in Manhattan at the time. Several of his works are in the collections of public museums, such as the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), ...

, the

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...

, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery,

, and the Dallas Museum of Art.

References

External links

Whitney Museum of American ArtArtnet
1902 births 1981 deaths People from the Bronx Realist painters 20th-century American painters American male painters Jewish painters Jewish American artists American people of Russian-Jewish descent Russian Jews Social realist artists Art Students League of New York faculty Painters from New York City Federal Art Project artists Cooper Union alumni Brooklyn Museum Art School faculty Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States {{US-painter-stub