Mitchell Siporin (1910–1976) was 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 ...

American painter.

Biography

Mitchell Siporin was born on May 5, 1910 in

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 ...

to Hyman, a truck driver, and Jennie Siporin, both immigrants from

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

, and grew up in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

.Abram Leon Sachar, ''Brandeis University: A Host at Last'',

Waltham, Massachusetts Waltham ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, and was an early center for the labor movement as well as a major contributor to the American Industrial Revolution. The original home of the Boston Manufacturing Company, ...

: Brandeis University Press, 1995, p. 15

/ref> Siporin attended

School of the Art Institute of Chicago The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) is a private art school associated with the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to an art students' cooperative founded in 1866, which grew into the museum and ...

. He did illustrations for '' Esquire'' and other magazines. Beginning in the mid-1930s, Siporin worked as a painter for the Illinois Art Project through 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 ...

. Together with Edward Millman, he painted "the largest single mural project awarded for a post office by the

Section of Fine Arts 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 ...

" in the Central Post Office in St Louis, Missouri. In late 1943 he was deployed as a sergeant in the Army Artist Unit, where he served alongside

Rudolph von Ripper Rudolph Charles von Ripper (January 29, 1905 – July 9, 1960) (born Rudolph Carl von Ripper, sometimes Rudolph RipperAfter the abolition of the Austrian nobility in 1919, Austrian nobles were no longer entitled to use 'von' in their names. How ...

. He sent back drawings and watercolours from North Africa and Italy. He married Miriam Tane in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

to November 9, 1945. He was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1945 and 1947. In 1949, he won the

Prix de Rome The Prix de Rome () or Grand Prix de Rome was a French scholarship for arts students, initially for painters and sculptors, that was established in 1663 during the reign of Louis XIV of France. Winners were awarded a bursary that allowed them t ...

in painting. In 1951, he founded the Department of Fine Arts at

Brandeis University , mottoeng = "Truth even unto its innermost parts" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = NECHE , president = Ronald D. Liebowitz , ...

.Rachel Rosenfield Lafo, ''Painting in Boston, 1950-2000'', Amherst, Massachusetts:

University of Massachusetts Press The University of Massachusetts Press is a university press that is part of the University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts a ...

, 2002, p. 20

/ref> In 1956, he became the first curator of the Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University Art Collection. Siporin died in 1976 in Newton, Massachusetts. He was

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

Works

Siporin's work is in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, the

Detroit Institute of Arts The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), located in Midtown Detroit, Michigan, has one of the largest and most significant art collections in the United States. With over 100 galleries, it covers with a major renovation and expansion project comple ...

, the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, 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 ...

, the National Gallery of Art, the

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is a museum and private art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, 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 (1875–194 ...

, and Albert G. Lane Technical High School in Chicago. In 1947 his painting ''End of an Era'' won the

Logan Medal of the Arts The Logan Medal of the Arts was an arts prize initiated in 1907 and associated with the Art Institute of Chicago, the Frank G Logan family and the Society for Sanity in Art. From 1917 through 1940, 270 awards were given for contributions to Ame ...

at the 51st Annual Exhibition in Chicago.

References

External links

*
Mitchell Siporin art at "''Comrades In Art''" online show
{{DEFAULTSORT:Siporin, Mitchell 1910 births 1976 deaths Artists from Chicago 20th-century American painters American male painters 20th-century American Jews Section of Painting and Sculpture artists Brandeis University faculty American muralists Painters from New York City Painters from Illinois Federal Art Project artists

Biography

Works

See also

References

External links