William Arnstein, professionally William Brice (April 23, 1921 – March 3, 2008) was an American artist known for his large-scale abstract paintings.

Biography

Born to actress

Fanny Brice Fania Borach (October 29, 1891 – May 29, 1951), known professionally as Fanny Brice or Fannie Brice, was an American comedienne, illustrated song model, singer, and theater and film actress who made many stage, radio, and film appearances. S ...

and her second husband, professional gambler Julius W. "Nicky" Arnstein, April 23, 1921, he spent his early years living with his mother and his sister, Frances (later the wife of producer

Ray Stark Raymond Otto Stark (October 3, 1915 – January 17, 2004) was one of the most successful and prolific independent film producers in postwar Hollywood. Stark's background as a literary and theatrical agent prepared him to produce some of the most ...

), while their father was in prison on a variety of charges stemming from a history of thefts, swindles, and confidence schemes. Artists such as

Clifford Odets Clifford Odets (July 18, 1906 – August 14, 1963) was an American playwright, screenwriter, and actor. In the mid-1930s, he was widely seen as the potential successor to Nobel Prize-winning playwright Eugene O'Neill, as O'Neill began to withdra ...

and the Gershwin brothers were frequent visitors. William's talent was recognized early, and even in childhood, he had the services of a private art tutor. Important influences included then-active artists

Henri Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known prima ...

and

Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

(one of whose works Brice acquired at the age of fourteen). Their mother, pursuing a career in radio, moved them to

Beverly Hills Beverly Hills is a city located in Los Angeles County, California. A notable and historic suburb of Greater Los Angeles, it is in a wealthy area immediately southwest of the Hollywood Hills, approximately northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Bev ...

. There he attended the

Chouinard Art Institute The Chouinard Art Institute was a professional art school founded in 1921 by Nelbert Murphy Chouinard (1879–1969) in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. In 1961, Walt and Roy Disney guided the merger of the Chouinard Art In ...

in Los Angeles (1937–39, 1940–42), as well as 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 New York City (1939–40). His first solo show of paintings and drawings was presented at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art in 1947. The early work was figural and representational. A 1950

L.A. Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

review of his solo exhibition at the Frank Perls Gallery (Beverly Hills) praises the still lifes "that stress the geometrical aspects of common objects." Over time, he moved in the direction of greater

abstraction 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 ...

, but rejected more progressive movements such as

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

Action Painting Action painting, sometimes called "gestural abstraction", is a style of painting in which paint is spontaneously dribbled, splashed or smeared onto the canvas, rather than being carefully applied. The resulting work often emphasizes the physical a ...

. His work was characterized by expert draughtsmanship. He is particularly remembered for the "classic modernism" of his late work, in which masses reminiscent of ancient ruins figure prominently, inspired in part by an important trip to Greece in 1970. From 1948 until 1952, he taught at the

Jepson Art Institute Jepson Art Institute, founded in 1945 by artist Herbert Jepson, was an art school located at 2861 West 7th Street in the Westlake district of central Los Angeles, California. It flourished from 1947 to 1953 — becoming an important center for ...

in Los Angeles, and the following year began his long tenure at

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

, continuing until his retirement in 1991, where he was a beloved teacher, and mentored generations of artists, for whom he "offered a connection to European Modernism." Brice's work is part of the permanent collections of such major museums as the

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile, Los Angeles, California, Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Pa ...

, the

Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) is a contemporary art museum with two locations in greater Los Angeles, California. The main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, near the Walt Disney Concert Hall. MOCA's or ...

, 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 ...

and 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), ...

in New York City. At age 86, he suffered injuries in a fall and never regained consciousness before dying at the

UCLA Medical Center Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center (also commonly referred to as ''UCLA Medical Center'', "RRMC" or "Ronald Reagan") is a hospital located on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles, in Westwood, Los Angeles, California, United ...

on March 3, 2008. He was survived by his wife, Shirley Bardeen, whom he had married in 1942, their son, John, and two grandsons.

References

* Marika Herskovic
''American Abstract and Figurative Expressionism: Style Is Timely Art Is Timeless''
(New York School Press, 2009.) . pp. 48–51 *Marika Herskovic
''American Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s An Illustrated Survey,''
(New York School Press, 2003.) , pp. 50–53

External links

Biography and images from exhibitions at LA Louver gallery

Biographical Summary at Crown Point Press
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Brice, William 1921 births 2008 deaths UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture faculty American artists American people of German-Jewish descent American people of Hungarian-Jewish descent Accidental deaths in California Accidental deaths from falls Jewish American artists Burials at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery 20th-century American Jews 21st-century American Jews