Janet Sobel (May 31, 1893 – November 11, 1968), born Jennie Olechovsky (occ. Lechovsky), was a Ukrainian-born American Abstract Expressionist painter whose career started mid-life, at age forty-five in 1938. Sobel pioneered the
drip painting
Drip painting is a form of abstract art in which paint is dripped or poured on to the canvas. This style of action painting was experimented with in the first half of the twentieth century by such artists as Francis Picabia, André Masson and Max ...
technique that directly influenced
Jackson Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his " drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a hor ...
. She was credited as exhibiting the first instance of
all-over painting All-over painting refers to the non-differential treatment of the surface of a work of two-dimensional art, for instance a painting. This concept is most popularly thought of as emerging in relation to the so-called "drip" paintings of Jackson Pollo ...
seen by
Clement Greenberg
Clement Greenberg () (January 16, 1909 – May 7, 1994), occasionally writing under the pseudonym K. Hardesh, was an American essayist known mainly as an art critic closely associated with American modern art of the mid-20th century and a formal ...
, a notable art critic.
Early life
Janet Sobel was born as Jennie Olechovsky in 1893 in Katerynoslav,
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
(now
Dnipro
Dnipro, previously called Dnipropetrovsk from 1926 until May 2016, is Ukraine's fourth-largest city, with about one million inhabitants. It is located in the eastern part of Ukraine, southeast of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on the Dnieper Rive ...
,
Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
). Her father, Baruch Olechovsky,
was killed in a Russian
pogrom
A pogrom () is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russia ...
. Sobel moved to
Ellis Island
Ellis Island is a federally owned island in New York Harbor, situated within the U.S. states of New York and New Jersey, that was the busiest immigrant inspection and processing station in the United States. From 1892 to 1954, nearly 12 mi ...
in
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 ...
with her mother, Fannie Kinchuk, a midwife,
and her siblings in 1908.
[ Two years later, she married Max Sobel,][ ] a fellow emigrant from the Ukraine, with whom she had five children.
She was already a grandmother when she began painting in 1937. She produced both non-objective abstractions
Abstraction in its main sense is a conceptual process wherein general rules and concepts are derived from the usage and classification of specific examples, literal ("real" or "concrete") signifiers, first principles, or other methods.
"An abstr ...
and figurative art
Figurative art, sometimes written as figurativism, describes artwork (particularly paintings and sculptures) that is clearly derived from real object sources and so is, by definition, representational. The term is often in contrast to abstract a ...
work.[ Upon recognizing Sobel's talent, her son, an art sutdent, helped her artistic development and shared her work with émigré surrealists, ]Max Ernst
Max Ernst (2 April 1891 – 1 April 1976) was a German (naturalised American in 1948 and French in 1958) painter, sculptor, printmaker, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was a primary pioneer of the Dada movement and Surrealism ...
, André Breton
André Robert Breton (; 19 February 1896 – 28 September 1966) was a French writer and poet, the co-founder, leader, and principal theorist of surrealism. His writings include the first ''Surrealist Manifesto'' (''Manifeste du surréalisme'') o ...
, as well as John Dewey
John Dewey (; October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the f ...
and Sidney Janis
Sidney Janis (July 8, 1896 – November 23, 1989) was a wealthy clothing manufacturer and art collector who opened an art gallery in New York City, New York in 1948. His gallery quickly gained prominence, for he not only exhibited work by the Abs ...
.[
]
Career
![Invasion Day by Janet Sobel](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/34/Invasion_Day_by_Janet_Sobel.png)
Effect of inspiration
Her belief in the ethics of self-realization in a democracy led to Sobel's encounter with philosopher John Dewey
John Dewey (; October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the f ...
. Dewey championed Sobel by writing about her in a catalogue statement at the Puma Gallery in New York in 1944. In this catalogue he states:
Her work is extraordinarily free from inventiveness and from self-consciousness and pretense. One can believe that to an unusual degree her forms and colors well up from a subconsciousness that is richly stored with sensitive impressions received directly from contact with nature, impressions which have been reorganized in figures in which color and form are happily wed.[John Dewey, ''Janet Sobel'', Puma gallery, leaflet catalogue, New York, April 24 to May 14, 1944.]
Sobel used music for inspiration and stimulation of her feelings into her canvas. Sobel's works exemplify the tendency to fill up every empty space, sometimes interpreted as horror vacui. She often depicted her feelings through past experiences. Her depiction of soldiers with cannons and imperial armies, as well as traditional Jewish families, reflected the experiences of her childhood. Her figures often demonstrated the time of the Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
, where she relived the trauma of her youth. Overcoming those youthful traumas, Sobel found a safe realm for her imagination through art.
Effect of art critics
An art authority during Sobel's time, Clement Greenberg, wrote on avant-garde painting. Although he had not addressed her during the three years her professional works circulated in New York galleries, he eventually positioned "Sobel as a forerunner of Abstract Expressionism
Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...
". Generally, he only framed Sobel's work relative to Abstract Expressionism or to Pollock, and especially in relation to Pollock's career. He consistently described Sobel's work as inferior to that of Pollock by characterizing it as "'primitive'" and that of a "'housewife'". In certain circles, the effect of his influence was a failure of recognition of her work during her career.
Nonetheless, Peggy Guggenheim
Marguerite "Peggy" Guggenheim ( ; August 26, 1898 – December 23, 1979) was an American art collector, bohemian and socialite. Born to the wealthy New York City Guggenheim family, she was the daughter of Benjamin Guggenheim, who went down with t ...
included Sobel's work in her The Art of This Century Gallery in 1946, and the influence of her work has been recognized by the artists who were touted highly in critiques by Greenberg.
Sobel also presented a solo show at The Art of This Century Gallery, the brochure for the show was written by Sidney Janis
Sidney Janis (July 8, 1896 – November 23, 1989) was a wealthy clothing manufacturer and art collector who opened an art gallery in New York City, New York in 1948. His gallery quickly gained prominence, for he not only exhibited work by the Abs ...
.
As described, some of her work is related to the so-called "drip paintings" of Jackson Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his " drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a hor ...
, who "'admitted that these pictures had made an impression on him'". By the time Sobel's work was seen in 1946 by Pollock and Greenberg, Pollock had already produced several works using the pouring technique. In his essay ''"'American-Type' Painting"'', first published in 1955, the critic cited Sobel's works as the first instance of all-over painting All-over painting refers to the non-differential treatment of the surface of a work of two-dimensional art, for instance a painting. This concept is most popularly thought of as emerging in relation to the so-called "drip" paintings of Jackson Pollo ...
he had seen, but attributed the style to appropriated female nature rather than to artistic creativity. Greenberg went on to say that her art evolved from recognizable figures to a more abstract style of paint dripping.
Sobel's paintings were characterized as belonging to "the realms of surrealism and primitivism." "Sobel was part folk artist, Surrealist, and Abstract Expressionist, but critics found it easiest to call her a 'primitive'." As Zalman summarizes, her title of "primitive" was "a category that enabled her acceptance by the art world, but restricted her artistic development". Grouping Sobel as a 'primitive' painter was part of a greater movement to try to form a unique American form of art, distinct from European art, while still trying to maintain a hierarchy of 'us and them'. Sobel was grouped as inferior due to being a housewife, while other painters could have been dismissed as being mentally inferior in some way. In a way, Sobel also serves as a representative of this conflict. Due to the attitudes of some of the critics of her day, Sobel became known as a suburban housewife who, working professionally as an artist, inspired the feminist conversation around domestic roles of women.
Notable works
Sobel's initial works show a flair for a primitivist figuration reminiscent of early Chagall
Marc Chagall; russian: link=no, Марк Заха́рович Шага́л ; be, Марк Захаравіч Шагал . (born Moishe Shagal; 28 March 1985) was a Russian-French artist. An early modernism, modernist, he was associated with se ...
and serves to herald early Dubuffet
Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet (31 July 1901 – 12 May 1985) was a French Painting, painter and sculpture, sculptor. His idealistic approach to aesthetics embraced so-called "low art" and eschewed traditional standards of beauty in favor of what ...
. The abundant floral motifs recall Ukrainian peasant art. In addition, the need to exploit media of all sorts is very evident (including sand). If her drip paintings weren't vivid enough, she would opt to outline them in ink in order to compensate. Aiding in inventing Abstract Expressionism did not conclude her imagistic work. Her main goal was visual intensity, which she attained with impressive regularity.
''Milky Way'', created in 1945, is currently displayed in the Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
.
Death
Sobel died at her home in Plainfield, New Jersey
Plainfield is a city in Union County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, known by its nickname as "The Queen City." in 1968. In 2021, ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' published a belated obituary for her.
References
Further reading
*
External links
Grandmother of Drip Painting
Hollis Taggart Galleries
* ttps://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/15/arts/art-in-review-janet-sobel.html?pagewanted=1 ART IN REVIEW By Roberta Smith ''The New York Times'' — PDF available for download)br>Mother of Invention (blog)
Significant Careers of Determined Artists: Janet Sobel; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
Images of paintings (Pinterest compilation)
2019 YouTube video about Janet Sobel mentioning drip painting
and all-over painting All-over painting refers to the non-differential treatment of the surface of a work of two-dimensional art, for instance a painting. This concept is most popularly thought of as emerging in relation to the so-called "drip" paintings of Jackson Pollo ...
]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sobel, Janet
1893 births
1968 deaths
20th-century American painters
Abstract expressionist artists
American women painters
Painters from New York (state)
Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States
20th-century American women artists
Ukrainian artists