Joseph Solman (January 25, 1909 – April 16, 2008) was an American painter, a founder of

The Ten ''The Ten'' is a 2007 anthology comedy film directed by David Wain and cowritten by Wain and Ken Marino. It was released through ThinkFilm. The film was released on August 3, 2007. The DVD was released on January 15, 2008. It is an international ...

, a group of

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

Expressionist Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...

painters in the 1930s. His best known works include his "Subway

Gouache Gouache (; ), body color, or opaque watercolor is a water-medium paint consisting of natural pigment, water, a binding agent (usually gum arabic or dextrin), and sometimes additional inert material. Gouache is designed to be opaque. Gouache ...

s" depicting travelers on the New York City Subway.

Career

Born in

Vitebsk Vitebsk or Viciebsk (russian: Витебск, ; be, Ві́цебск, ; , ''Vitebsk'', lt, Vitebskas, pl, Witebsk), is a city in Belarus. The capital of the Vitebsk Region, it has 366,299 inhabitants, making it the country's fourth-largest c ...

, Russian Empire, he was brought to America from the Russian Empire as a child in 1912, Solman was a prodigious draftsman and knew, in his earliest teens, that he would be an artist. He went straight from high school to 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 f ...

, though he says he learned more by sketching in the subway on the way back from school late at night: people "pose perfectly when they're asleep." In 1929, Solman saw the inaugural show at 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 ...

featuring

Seurat Georges Pierre Seurat ( , , ; 2 December 1859 – 29 March 1891) was a French post-Impressionist artist. He devised the painting techniques known as chromoluminarism and pointillism and used conté crayon for drawings on paper with a rough su ...

Gauguin Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (, ; ; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French Post-Impressionist artist. Unappreciated until after his death, Gauguin is now recognized for his experimental use of colour and Synthetist style that were distinct fr ...

Van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inc ...

, and Cézanne. In 1934, Solman had his first one-man show, much influenced by the French modern artist

Georges Rouault Georges Henri Rouault (; 27 May 1871, Paris – 13 February 1958) was a French painter, draughtsman and print artist, whose work is often associated with Fauvism and Expressionism. Childhood and education Rouault was born in Paris into a ...

. One critic was impressed by "the mystery that lurks in deserted streets in the late twilight." Another noted that Solman's color had "an astonishingly rich quality that burns outward beneath the surface." Joseph Solman was, with

Mark Rothko Mark Rothko (), born Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz (russian: Ма́ркус Я́ковлевич Ротко́вич, link=no, lv, Markuss Rotkovičs, link=no; name not Anglicized until 1940; September 25, 1903 – February 25, 1970), was a Lat ...

, the unofficial co-leader of The Ten, a group of expressionist painters including

Louis Schanker Louis Schanker (1903 – May 7, 1981) was an American abstract artist. Early life He grew up in an Orthodox Jewish environment in the Bronx, New York. His parents, Sam, a tailor, and Fannie Schanker, were of Romanian descent. He had five sibl ...

Adolph Gottlieb Adolph Gottlieb (March 14, 1903 – March 4, 1974) was an American abstract expressionist painter, sculptor and printmaker. Early life and education Adolph Gottlieb, one of the "first generation" of Abstract Expressionists, was born in New York ...

and

Ilya Bolotowsky Ilya Bolotowsky (July 1, 1907 – November 22, 1981) was a leading early 20th-century Russian-American painter in abstract styles in New York City. His work, a search for philosophical order through visual expression, embraced cubism and ge ...

, who exhibited as the "Whitney Dissenters" at the Mercury Galleries in

in 1938. A champion of modernism, Solman was elected an editor of ''Art Front Magazine'' when its other editors, art historian

Meyer Schapiro Meyer Schapiro (23 September 1904 – 3 March 1996) was a Lithuanian-born American art historian known for developing new art historical methodologies that incorporated an interdisciplinary approach to the study of works of art. An expert on earl ...

and critic

Harold Rosenberg Harold Rosenberg (February 2, 1906 – July 11, 1978) was an American writer, educator, philosopher and art critic. He coined the term Action Painting in 1952 for what was later to be known as abstract expressionism. Rosenberg is best known for ...

, were still partial to

Social Realism 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 ...

. But Solman never believed in abstraction for abstraction's sake. "I have long discovered for myself," Solman has said, "that what we call the subject yields more pattern, more poetry, more drama, greater abstract design and tension than any shapes we may invent." In writing about a purchase of a typical 1930s Solman street scene for the Wichita Museum, director Howard Wooden put it this way: "Solman has produced the equivalent of an

abstract expressionist 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 ...

painting a full decade before the abstract expressionist movement came to dominate the American art scene, but without abandoning identifiable forms." In 1964, ''The Times'', discussing his well-known subway gouaches (done while commuting to his some-time job as a racetrack pari-mutuel clerk), called him a "Pari-Mutuel Picasso." In 1985, on the occasion of a 50-year retrospective, ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'' wrote: "It appears to have dawned, at last, on many collectors that this is art that has already stood the acid test of time." is Joseph Solman died in his sleep, at his long-time home in New York City, on April 16, 2008. He was the father of economist and television commentator Paul Solman and the retired elementary school teacher and community organizer, Ronni Solman.

References

External links

Notes from the Underground, Subway Portraits by Joseph Solman
Danforth Museum of Art 2007
Painter Joseph Solman: taking bets on real life
Chris Bergeron et al., ''Framingham Tab'', May 3, 2007. {{DEFAULTSORT:Solmon, Joseph 1909 births 2008 deaths 20th-century American painters American male painters 21st-century American painters 21st-century American male artists Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States Jewish American artists Jewish painters 20th-century American Jews 21st-century American Jews 20th-century American male artists