John R. Grabach (March 2, 1886 – March 17, 1981) was an American painter who gained prominence in the art world of the 1920s and 1930s. He was known for his gritty,

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 ...

works depicting urban working-class scenes 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 ...

and

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

. Although his work resembles that of the Ashcan school, he is generally considered a post-Ashcan, urban realist. Characterized as the “leading American painter 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 ...

” and “a dynamic painter with a strong spirit of

nationalism Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a in-group and out-group, group of peo ...

,” his career spanned most of the 20th century. Grabach also authored the art text, ''How to Draw the Human Figure'', first published in 1957.

Early life and education

John Robert Grabach was born March 2, 1886, in

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.Orange, New Jersey with August Schwabe, who introduced Grabach to the Newark Sketch Club. In 1904, at age 18, Grabach took employment with a silverware manufacturer, where he first worked as a

machinist A machinist is a tradesperson or trained professional who not only operates machine tools, but also has the knowledge of tooling and materials required to create set ups on machine tools such as milling machines, grinders, lathes, and drilling ...

and later as a designer. Grabach continued to paint and draw in his spare time, and he enrolled at the

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 ...

where, commuting from New Jersey, he took night classes, studying with Kenyon Cox, Frank V. DuMond, and

George Bridgman George Brant Bridgman (November 5, 1864 – December 16, 1943) was a Canadian-American painter, writer, and teacher in the fields of anatomy and figure drawing. Bridgman taught anatomy for artists at the Art Students League of New York for some ...

Career

In 1912, Grabach, now in his mid-20s, moved from Newark to rural Greenfield, Massachusetts, where he resided for three years. Although he continued to work as a silverware designer — for the firm Rogers, Lunt and Bowlen — his primary interest became his art. During this time, he painted — in a style not unlike that of John Twachtman’s — several impressionistic winter

landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...

s of the

Connecticut River The Connecticut River is the longest river in the New England region of the United States, flowing roughly southward for through four states. It rises 300 yards (270 m) south of the U.S. border with Quebec, Canada, and discharges at Long Island ...

and

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

countryside. His ''Banks of the Connecticut River,'' shown at the National Academy’s 1914 Winter Exhibition, was selected for inclusion in the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exhibition in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

, a singular honor for a generally unknown artist. Returning to New Jersey in 1915, Grabach aggressively strove to increase his visibility in art circles by exhibiting widely. In close touch with artists active in

, he developed an affinity for the Ashcan artists’ street scenes and was particularly intrigued by the work of John Sloan and

George Bellows George Wesley Bellows (August 12 or August 19, 1882 – January 8, 1925) was an American realism, American realist painting, painter, known for his bold depictions of urban life in New York City. He became, according to the Columbus Museum of Art ...

. During his daily trips into the city, he became fascinated with the “washdays” of Tuesdays when tenement apartment dwellers strung their laundry on lines from buildings and trees. It was in these wash-day scenes where Grabach found a theme that satisfied his artistic expectations. Notable works of this period, which encompass aspects of Americanism, social relevance, contemporariness, and visual stimulation, include the paintings ''Wash Day in Spring'' (1921) and ''East Side, New York'' (1924). In the 1920s, the painting of urban landscapes engrossed Grabach, and he took a studio in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

near the

Brooklyn Bridge The Brooklyn Bridge is a hybrid cable-stayed/ suspension bridge in New York City, spanning the East River between the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn. Opened on May 24, 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge was the first fixed crossing of the East River ...

. It was around this time his work began to garner increasing attention. In 1924, he was the recipient of the

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...

’s Peabody Prize. As the 1920s waned and the

unfolded, Grabach’s breezy, decorative urban scenes began to evolve. Increasingly concerned by social conditions, his paintings became more melancholy and political, often featuring a somber palette of grays, dark greens, browns, black, and muted reds. The paintings ''The Lone House'' (1929), ''The Fifth Year'' (1934) and ''The Horizon (Arising)'' (1935) exemplify this directional shift toward the more serious and personal. The brightness and festivity of his early work was no longer, replaced by themes of cynicism and human anonymity. In 1928, the Art Institute of Chicago hosted a solo exhibition of his work. In 1939, Grabach's horse race painting, ''Taking the Hurdles'' (c. 1938), was accepted for display at the IBM pavilion at the World's Fair in New York. Later purchased by the IBM Corporation, the work showed none of the high spirits of a horse racing event, but rather a deep disconnect between the race and disinterested spectators. (Grabach, at a later date, bought the painting back and sold it to a private collector.) As American art and artists turned again to

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

for inspiration in

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 ...

and

surrealism Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to l ...

, Grabach became disillusioned with the contemporary art scene. Becoming more insular he turned to the Munich School of the nineteenth century for inspiration, drifting away from the art circles of New York and elsewhere. He exhibited less and taught more. Grabach was honored in 1953 with a solo show at The Grand Central Galleries in New York City. In 1957, his book, ''How to Draw the Human Figure,'' was published. In 1961, he was elected an Associate of 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 ...

, a recognition he had earlier had declined. With this accolade, he began to exhibit more often. He was elected full Academician of the National Academy of Design in 1968. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s he continued to paint and teach, though his works were more often small character studies in oil, rather than large exhibition paintings. In 1980, he was honored with a one-artist exhibition at the

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds o ...

Teaching

In 1932, due to the financial hardships of the Great Depression, Grabach accepted a position teaching life-drawing classing at the

Newark School of Fine and Industrial Art Newark School of Fine and Industrial Art (NSFIA) was a city-run vocational and art school in Newark, New Jersey. Opened in 1882 as the Evening Drawing School, its name was changed in 1909 to the Fawcett School of Industrial Arts, and changed agai ...

. During this time, he also worked as a free-lance illustrator. Grabach taught at the Newark School and other nearby educational institutions for several decades. Among his many thousands of students was Henry Gasser, who became a popular Newark artist as well as Grabach's longtime friend and confidant.

Personal life

Grabach was an only child. He was 10 when his father died, on August 21, 1896, at age 30, in Newark. At age 25, Grabach married Anna Thompson October 21, 1911, in Newark. The couple were captured in the 1920 census living at 915 Sanford Street in Newark. The marriage, which produced no children, ended when Thompson died March 28, 1925. Grabach never remarried. In the 1930 census, he was listed living with his mother, Eva, at 915 Sanford Street. She died sometime between 1930 and 1940. Grabach continued to live at 915 Sanford Street until his death in 1981.

Death

Grabach died March 17, 1981, at age 95, in Newark. He died in "almost total obscurity."

Note

Grabach's true birth date and birthplace remain somewhat uncertain, with sources differing as the exact date and place. Moreover, Grabach, while alive, did little to clear up the matter, preferring to be reticent about his personal life. However, census and genealogical records point to Newark as his birthplace, in year of 1886. This date and place is also referenced in Virginia Mecklenburg's ''John R. Grabach: Seventy Year an Artist,'' published in 1980. Although Mecklenburg admits her version is "sketchy," she had access to early sources not available to previous researchers. The Encyclopedia of New Jersey also affirms Grabach's birthplace as Newark, although it lists his birth year as 1885.Lurie, Maxine N. and Marc Mappen, eds. ''Encyclopedia of New Jersey'' Rutgers University Press, 2004; p. 331

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Grabach, John R. 1886 births 1981 deaths 20th-century American painters Painters from Newark, New Jersey Art Students League of New York alumni National Academy of Design members Ashcan School people American realist painters