Michael Lenson (February 21, 1903 – June 9, 1971) has gained widespread recognition as one of America's most important realist painters. ''Who Was Who in American Art'' called him "New Jersey's most important muralist."
He is valued for his skill as a draftsman and the technique he achieved by close study of the
.
Biography
Michael Lenson was born as Michael Levenson in
Galich, Russia
Galich (russian: link=no, Галич) is a town in Kostroma Oblast, Russia, located on the southern bank of Lake Galichskoye. As of the 2021 Census, its population was 12,856.
History
It was first chronicled in 1234 as Grad Mersky (lit. ...
, on February 21, 1903, and emigrated to the United States in 1911. He 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 ...
, where he won the $10,000 Chalonier Paris Prize in 1928. This supported four years of additional studies in Europe: at the
Slade School of Art
The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...
in London, the
Academie des Beaux Arts
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...
in Paris, and in the Netherlands.
He returned from Europe to face an inhospitable art market during the Great Depression. He told an interviewer years later: "I was no more a conquering hero, I came back to nothing."
[ He applied for work with the New York unit of the Work Progress Administration's ]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 ...
, but was rejected because he exceeded the income requirement since one of his brothers was a doctor and the family owned a dry cleaning business. In 1936 he reapplied successfully in New Jersey by not admitting to any family sources of support. He rose to become assistant state supervisor of mural projects for the WPA in New Jersey. He completed several major murals and he supervised a dozen more by other artists. He stayed with the WPA until the program ended in 1943.[
His surviving WPA murals, all in Newark, include ''History of the Enlightenment of Man'' at ]Weequahic High School
Weequahic High School is a four-year comprehensive public high school serving students in ninth through twelfth grades, located in the Weequahic section of Newark in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. The school is operated by the Newar ...
; ''History of Newark'' in the council chambers at Newark City Hall
Newark City Hall is located at Government Center in Newark, Essex County, New Jersey, United States. The building was built in 1902 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 17, 1978.
History
The building is a five- ...
; and ''The Four Freedoms'' at the Fourteenth Avenue School. Three others were destroyed: ''The History of New Jersey'', a 16-by-75-foot mural at the Essex Mountain Sanatorium in Verona, was destroyed during renovations; murals for the New Jersey Pavilion of the 1939 World's Fair and for the Charlton Street School in Newark were lost to demolition.[
The Treasury Department's ]Section of Painting and Sculpture
The Treasury Section of Painting and Sculpture was a New Deal art project established on October 16, 1934, and administered by the Procurement Division of the United States Department of the Treasury.
Commonly known as the Section, it was rena ...
commissioned Lenson to create a mural titled ''Mining'' (1942) for the United States post office in Mount Hope, West Virginia
Mount Hope is a city in Fayette County, West Virginia, United States. The population was 1,414 at the 2010 census.
History
The community took its name from the local Mount Hope School.
The Mount Hope Historic District and New River Company Ge ...
.
In 1941 he bought a home in Nutley, New Jersey
Nutley is a township in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, the township's population was 30,143.
What is now Nutley was originally incorporated as Franklin Township by an act of the New Jersey Legisla ...
, and in 1945 he married June Rollar.[
Lenson exhibited at several New York City galleries, including Bonestell Gallery in 1947, Kende Gallery in 1951, and Cober Gallery in 1962.][ A ''New York Times'' review said:
He painted in oil after 1950, adapting his earlier surrealist elements to the socialist realism of his younger years. "Where Are We Now?" (1955) protested against nuclear proliferation in a way both emotional and political. One critic described his later works as "sometimes difficult to read because they're so visually intricate" but are still perfect representatives of the politically engaged art of the Cold War years.
He painted and exhibited extensively until his death in 1971.
Lenson wrote a weekly column for the '' Newark Sunday News'', "The Realm of Art," from 1956 to 1971.] It made him, according to art historian William Gerdts
William Henry Gerdts Jr. (January 18, 1929 – April 14, 2020) was an American art historian and professor of Art History at the CUNY Graduate Center. Gerdts was the author of over twenty-five books on American art. An expert in American Impression ...
, "New Jersey's most distinguished art critic". He taught at the Rutgers Extension School[ and ]Montclair Art Museum
The Montclair Art Museum (MAM) is located in Montclair, New Jersey, United States, a few miles west of New York City. Since it opened in 1914 as the first museum in New Jersey that granted access to the public and the first dedicated solely to a ...
, which acquired many of his works upon his death. He testified before a government committee in 1969 to urge increased funding for public libraries in a room decorated with his own murals.[
The Montclair Art Museum mounted a retrospective of his career in 1970.][ Still a resident of Nutley, Lenson died in Orange, New Jersey, on June 9, 1971, at the age of 68.][
His works are in the collections of the ]RISD Museum
The Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD Museum) is an art museum integrated with the Rhode Island School of Design, in Providence, Rhode Island, US. The museum was co-founded with the school in 1877, and still shares multiple build ...
, the Maier Museum of Art
Maier Museum of Art at Randolph College features works by American artists from the 19th through 21st centuries. Randolph College (founded at Randolph-Macon Women's College) has been collecting American art since 1907 and the Maier Museum of Art n ...
, the Johnson Museum at Cornell, the Newark Museum
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, Af ...
, the Montclair Art Museum, the Wolfsonian Collection, and many others.
TheButler Institute of American Art in Ohio presented a one-man retrospective exhibition of paintings and drawings by Lenson, "Time, Place and Substance", in 2012–2013.''Time, Place and Substance'', Exhibition Catalog
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One of his brothers was the humorist Sam Levenson
Samuel Levenson (December 28, 1911August 27, 1980) was an American humorist, writer, teacher, television host, and journalist.
Personal life
Born in 1911, he grew up in a large Jewish immigrant family in Brooklyn, New York. He graduated from Br ...
. His son is David Lenson, a professor in the Comparative Literature
Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across linguistic, national, geographic, and disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role similar to that of the study ...
department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst
The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts and the sole public land-grant university in Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Founded in 1863 as an agricultural college, it ...
and the author of On Drugs.
Sources
External links
Michael Lenson website
Oil study for "Mining"
Oral history interview with Michael Lenson, 1964 Oct. 30
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lenson, Michael
1903 births
1971 deaths
Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States
Social realist artists
Federal Art Project artists
20th-century American painters
American male painters
Artists from New Jersey
People from Nutley, New Jersey
20th-century American male artists
Section of Painting and Sculpture artists