Louis Leon Ribak (3 December 1902 – 1979) was an 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 ...

and abstract painter who was a member of the " Taos Moderns" group of artists.

Biography

Born in the

Grodno Grodno (russian: Гродно, pl, Grodno; lt, Gardinas) or Hrodna ( be, Гродна ), is a city in western Belarus. The city is located on the Neman River, 300 km (186 mi) from Minsk, about 15 km (9 mi) from the Polish b ...

in the

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. ...

, Ribak emigrated to

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 ...

at the age of ten with his family. He studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts for a year in 1922, and 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 ...

in 1923 under John Sloan. In 1929, he became a founding member of the John Reed Club, which was organized to support leftist artists and writers and was closely associated with the Marxist magazine '' The New Masses''. In the 1930s and 1940s, Ribak painted in a

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 ...

style, exhibiting with fellow Social Realists like Reginald Marsh and Raphael Soyer. In the 1930s he also worked as a muralist for 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 ...

; among these works is the 1939 mural '' View Near Albemarle'' in the U.S. Post Office in

Albemarle, North Carolina Albemarle () is a small city and the county seat of Stanly County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 15,903 in the 2010 Census. Gerald R. "Ronnie" Michael (a former police chief in the city) serves as Mayor and Albemarle has a se ...

. In 1933, he assisted Diego Rivera on his mural '' Man at the Crossroads'', commissioned for Rockefeller Center and destroyed before completion. Ribak met fellow artist

Beatrice Mandelman Beatrice Mandelman (December 31, 1912 – June 24, 1998), known as Bea, was an American abstract artist associated with the group known as the Taos Moderns. She was born in Newark, New Jersey to Anna Lisker Mandelman and Louis Mandelman, Jewish i ...

in New York at a dance sponsored by the Artists Union, and the two married in 1942. He served in the military for two years during the

Second World War 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 ...

and was discharged because of

asthma Asthma is a long-term inflammatory disease of the airways of the lungs. It is characterized by variable and recurring symptoms, reversible airflow obstruction, and easily triggered bronchospasms. Symptoms include episodes of wheezing, cou ...

. Seeking a healthier climate, Ribak and Mandelman moved to

Taos, New Mexico Taos is a town in Taos County in the north-central region of New Mexico in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Initially founded in 1615, it was intermittently occupied until its formal establishment in 1795 by Nuevo México Governor Fernando Cha ...

in 1944. At this point, Ribak shifted to a more abstract style and brighter color palette. In 1947, he and Mandelman founded the Taos Valley Art School, and Ribak was its director and an instructor until it closed in 1955. Ribak died in Taos in 1979. His work is in the permanent collections of 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), ...

(New York) and

The Newark Museum of Art The Newark Museum of Art (formerly known as the Newark Museum), in Newark, Essex County, New Jersey, United States, is the state's largest museum. It holds major collections of American art, decorative arts, contemporary art, and arts of Asia, A ...

(New Jersey), among other institutions. The Mandelman-Ribak Foundation was established to preserve the legacy of Ribak and Mandelman; among other activities, it catalogued a half century of their work held in the Mandelman-Ribak Collection. In 2014, the collection and associated personal papers were donated to the University of New Mexico.

References

External links

Mandelman-Ribak Foundation

Louis Ribak
SullivanGoss.com
Louis Ribak
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Louis Ribak 1902 births 1979 deaths 20th-century American painters American male painters American muralists Art Students League of New York alumni Artists from Taos, New Mexico Federal Art Project artists People from Pruzhany District Section of Painting and Sculpture artists 20th-century American male artists Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States {{US-painter-1900s-stub