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Edward Biberman

1904-1986

Theme/Style – California Modernism, Western landscapes, figurative art, portraits, architectural subjects, social themes

Media – Oils, murals

Artistic Focus – Edward Biberman’s work often reflected current events — the Depression, World War II, labor unrest — as well as his appreciation of the architecture of America’s fresh, new urban frontier. His portraits, which depicted people both rich and poor, famous and unknown, evoke a sense of dignity no matter their subject.

Career Highlights –

Born into a prosperous East Coast family and educated in economics at the Wharton School.
At the age of 17 he broke his leg, and while recuperating, indulged in his love of painting. During this period, he painted a portrait of his sister, which attracted the attention of Philadelphia portraitist Robert Susan, who encouraged Biberman’s talent.
Studies at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, followed by three years in Paris, cemented Biberman’s decision to pursue a career as an artist.
By 1930, he had moved into a New York City studio and become one of the “46 Under 35” younger artists featured in a Museum of Modern Art exhibition.
The 1933 Depression-motivated suicide of Biberman’s father gave the artist’s work the socially-relevant edge for which it now is best known.
Biberman cited his father’s death as “part of the larger travail of a nation with seventeen million unemployed. I questioned the relevance of my own work.” His questioning led the artist west, first to Arizona and Utah, and ultimately to Los Angeles, where Biberman spent the remainder of his life.

Carl F. Binder

1887-1968

Theme/Style – Modernism, figurative art, still lifes, landscapes

Media – Oils, watercolors, lithographs, metal relief cuts

Artistic Focus – Carl Binder was a bold and highly original Modernist painter and lithographer. Unfortunately, today his works are rare, though in the 1920s and 1930s he exhibited often, and held his own in the company of such well-known artists as Charles Sheeler, Rockwell Kent, Guy Pene du Bois, and Charles Burchfield.

Career Highlights –

Born in Germany in 1887, Carl Binder studied at the Knackfuss and Dusseldorf Art Academies there.
After coming to the United States, Binder was active in Cleveland, Ohio, exhibiting at the Cleveland Museum of Art where he won prizes each year from 1924 to 1928. He was also a member of Cleveland’s historic and flamboyant Kokoon Arts Club.
Carl Binder exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1929 and 1931; as well as at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia in 1929 with his Modernist landscape Farm and Forest; at the Corcoran Gallery of Art’s thirteenth biennial exhibition in Washington, D.C. in 1932; and at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York in 1937, as part of an exhibition of work by Cleveland painters and printmakers.
Binder’s lithographs, metal relief cuts, and paintings are in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Carl Binder passed away in Harbor City, California in 1968.

Stanley Bielecky

1903-1985

Theme/Style – Modernism, landscapes, townscapes, figurative work, still lifes

Media – Oil, watercolor, graphite, printmaking

Artistic Focus – Though he exhibited in California and New York, and made painting excursions to Mackinac Island, New Orleans, Arizona, and Mexico, Stanley Bielecky lived the majority of his life as an artist in the area of the U.S. in which he had grown up, becoming a well-known and highly regarded painter and teacher in the cities and towns of northwest Indiana. And indeed, Bielecky’s artworks convey a deep familiarity with his subject matter, whether it is an East Chicago industrial scene, workers at their jobs, or a vibrant study of the rural countryside under a summer sky.

Career Highlights –

Born in Berlin, Germany in 1903, Stanley Bielecky came to the U.S. at the age of three, and the family eventually settled in East Chicago, Indiana.
Bielecky was awarded the Edward M. Johnson Art Scholarship from the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, where he studied from 1930 to 1934, after which he pursued graduate work at the Art Institute of Chicago.
Two of Bielecky’s prints were included in the Seventh Annual Exhibition of American Block Prints at the Wichita Art Association in Kansas in 1934; and in the summer of 1935 he had a one-man show of oil paintings and watercolors at the Hoosier Salon, where he would continue to exhibit throughout the 1930s in the Salon’s showings at Marshall Field’s gallery in Chicago.
Bielecky began exhibiting in the East Chicago, Indiana area in the mid-1930s and continued to work and exhibit there throughout his career. He also began teaching art, as supervisor of art classes in the community, as well as working as an instructor for WPA art classes.
From the mid 1930s through the 1950s, Bielecky exhibited often in the Art Institute of Chicago’s Annual Exhibition by Artists of Chicago and Vicinity.
In the summer of 1937, Bielecky took a painting trip to Mexico with fellow artist Robert Thomas; and on his return to Indiana he began lecturing on art at the Calumet Center of Indiana University’s Extension division in East Chicago.
In 1938 Bielecky was awarded a Resident Fellowship to the Tiffany Foundation in New York, and was included in the foundation members’ exhibition at the city’s Fine Arts Building.
Bielecky was included in an exhibition of Indiana artists at the John Herron Art Institute in Indianapolis in 1939, where he won Honorable Mention for his painting “The Workmen.”
Bielecky was included in shows at the San Francisco Museum of Art in 1938 and 1939, and during the early 1940s he also exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Delgado Museum in New Orleans, the Toledo Museum of Art, the Grand Central Galleries in New York, and other venues.
Bielecky spent summers painting on Mackinac Island, Michigan, working as a bartender and carriage driver to support himself. Hoping to create an art colony on the island, he was to become a key figure in the area’s art community, co-founding and directing the Mackinac Island Summer School of Art in 1940 and 1941. With the start of World War II, the school closed; but Bielecky’s Mackinac Island paintings still hang in the Richard & Jane Manoogian Art Museum there.
In 1941, Bielecky became a fine arts instructor at Indiana’s Valparaiso University, and was awarded the Maxon Prize by the Detroit Institute of Arts for his “Mackinac Street Scene.”
From 1942 to 1945 Bielecky served in the U.S. Army as a camoufleur, returning to his position at Valparaiso University afterwards, where he was to remain as an instructor until 1957, painting from his studio in East Chicago and making painting trips to New Orleans and Arizona.
Bielecky exhibited his paintings, drawings and watercolors of Indiana, Mackinac Island, New Orleans, and the American west until the early 1970s, and he passed away in 1985.

Arnold Blanch

1896-1968

Theme/Style – Figurative, Modernism, Surrealism, Abstraction, portraits, landscapes, genre scenes

Media – Oils, tempera, gouache, etchings, lithographs, murals, fresco, mosaic

Artistic Focus – The Los Angeles Times critic Henry J. Seldis wrote of Arnold Blanch: “a refreshing selection of his works now on view reminds us that he was an artist of considerable talents and charms…. at his best in his freely conceived semiabstractions of landscapes… and the female figure.” Blanch was nothing if not versatile, skillfully rendering an etching of a genre scene as powerfully as his handsome figurative works, portraits and still lifes. His subtle use of surrealist techniques was one of his hallmarks, giving his paintings both a liveliness and mystery.

Career Highlights –

Born in Mantorville, Minnesota in 1896, Blanch attended the Minneapolis School of Art, where he met his first wife, painter Lucile (Lundquist) Blanch.
Blanch drew maps for the American Expeditionary Forces during World War I. After the war, he and Lucile moved to New York City and enrolled at the Art Students League, studying with John Sloan, Robert Henri, Kenneth Hayes Miller and Boardman Robinson.
By 1923 the Blanches had settled in the art colony at Woodstock, NY, and Blanch’s first one-man exhibition was held in New York City in 1926.
During the next decade Blanch exhibited often with New York’s Dudensing Galleries (aka Valentine Dudensing or Valentine Gallery), one of the top Manhattan galleries of its day showing works by Matisse, Bonnard, Braque, Derain, and Picasso (whose “Guernica” had its first U.S. showing there). In 1927, Blanch’s work was included in the show inaugurating Dudensing’s new contemporary exhibition space; and also in the gallery’s 1930 show, “40 American Artists.”
Between 1930 and 1932 Blanch was a visiting teacher at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco, and won the Anne Bremer Memorial first prize in the annual exhibition of the San Francisco Art Association in 1931. During the 1930s Blanch also taught at the Art Students League of New York and the Broadmoor Art Academy in Colorado Springs.
In 1932 Blanch joined the roster of New York’s Frank K.M. Rehn Galleries, and one of his artworks was purchased by the Metropolitan Museum of Art that same year. His work is also in the collections of New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art and Museum of Modern Art, among many other institutions.
During the 1930s Blanch worked for the Treasury Department’s Section of Fine Arts, painting murals for post offices in Fredonia, NY, Norwalk, CT, and Columbus, WI; and in 1939 his work was included in the WPA/Federal Art Project exhibition “Frontiers of American Art” at the de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco.
In 1936 Blanch served on the executive committee of New York’s League of American Artists, a group formed to defend artists’ rights and work with other groups against war and fascism.
In 1937 Blanch was included in a Los Angeles Museum show of the Sawkill group of Woodstock painters, and exhibited at the Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco in 1939. He also took third prize at the Carnegie International Exhibition of Contemporary Painting in Pittsburgh in 1938. Blanch married fellow artist Doris Lee in 1939.
In 1947 Blanch designed a two-story fabric piece to hang at the entrance of the new Associated American Artists Galleries of California, which opened that year in Beverly Hills. He exhibited at the San Francisco’s California Palace of the Legion of Honor in 1948, and served on the jury for the 1957 exhibition “Artists of Los Angeles and Vicinity” at the L.A. County Museum. In 1962 New York’s Krasner Gallery held a 40-year retrospective of Blanch’s work.
Blanch passed away while traveling to New York City from his home in Woodstock in 1968. Soon afterwards two shows of his paintings and drawings took place at the Heritage Gallery in Los Angeles, in 1971 and 1973.

Dorr Bothwell

1902-2000

Theme/Style – Surrealism, figurative art, landscapes

Media – Oils, lithography, screen printing

Artistic Focus – Dorr Bothwell produced some of the period’s most notable Surrealist work, including canvases with “remarkable, almost haunting, enigmatic landscapes,” close-up studies of fruits and plants with forced horizons, and a number of self-portraits using satirical symbols and a touch of whimsy. Her works reflect the Surrealist emphasis on directness, simplicity and power.

Career Highlights –

In 1921, Bothwell attended the California School of Fine Arts, where she studied with Gottardo Piazzoni.
To circumvent the blatant sexism of her youth, she changed her name from Doris to Dorr to avoid exclusion from competitions where gender bias would influence the results.
A strong and independent woman, she married sculptor Donal Hord, but ended the marriage when her husband refused to be an equal participant in the household responsibilities.
For over a year, she settled in Samoa, where the tropical environment influenced her palette, moving the artist to greater use of bright, sparkling color. Her subject matter also expanded to include primitive people and their culture.
During much of her adult life, Bothwell spent summers working in Joshua Tree, California, and winters in Mendocino, California.

Selection of Works by this Artist

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Jessie Arms Botke

1883-1971

Theme/Style – Modernism, Impressionism, animals, nature, figurative art, landscape, still life, decorative art

Media – Oils, watercolors, pastel, murals, block prints, illustrations

Artistic Focus – Consistent in style throughout her lifelong career, Jessie Arms Botke enjoyed both critical and commercial success as a painter of bold, decorative paintings of birds, underwater life, and the flora and fauna of numerous geographic locations. Her work was generally ornate, highly decorative, bright and lively, and always representational, no matter the artistic trend of the time in which it was painted. She was known for her technically demanding large canvases, many of which featured gold leaf treatments in an art decoesque style.

Career Highlights –

Born Jessie Hazel Arms in Chicago, Illinois in 1883, Jessie Arms Botke’s interest in art began at an early age, with classes at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago when she was only 14 years old. She continued there as a full-time student from 1902 to 1905, and in additional classes through 1910. During this time Botke also took summer classes with John C. Johansen in Saugatuck, Michigan and Charles Woodbury in Ogunquit, Maine, and also worked as a decorator and book illustrator.
In 1906 Botke negotiated a round trip to Arizona and California with Chicago’s Santa Fe Railway Company in exchange for paintings, and she produced paintings of western subjects including Native American life and California missions.
Botke created decorative friezes on commission in Chicago in 1911, and later that year moved to New York, where she created tapestry decorations at the Herter Looms until 1915. Her skill at painting birds was noticed by Albert Herter, and she was asked to do all the birds in his tapestry commissions for San Francisco’s St. Francis Hotel in 1913-1914.
She married fellow artist Cornelius Botke in 1915, and she and her husband worked together on murals in Chicago until 1919. They subsequently moved to California, living in Carmel until 1927.
After spending a brief period in Los Angeles, in 1929 the Botkes moved to their final home, a ranch in Wheeler Canyon, Santa Paula, California.
In 1930 Botke had solo shows at the Paul Elder Gallery in San Francisco, Vose Galleries in Boston, and Grand Central Art Galleries in New York, where she had another solo show in 1962.
Botke exhibited at San Francisco’s Golden Gate International Exhibition in 1939; and also in 1939, Jessie and Cornelis Botke painted murals in Los Angeles’s I. Magnin department store.
In the 1940s, Botke added smaller watercolors and oil paintings to her repertoire after discovering they were commercially popular and easier to produce. However, she never abandoned her love of the highly stylish, intricate paintings that first brought her fame.
In 1953 Botke, assisted by her husband, Cornelis, painted a 7-by-26-foot mural for the ballroom of the Oaks Hotel in Ojai, California. The mural, painted on canvas and depicting the Florida Everglades, remained there for 40 years until the hotel was renovated and the mural was removed, preserved, and gifted to California’s Irvine Museum.
Botke remained active as a painter late into her life, working on trains as she traveled from California to the Midwest and East Coast, and following the death of her husband in 1954, she painted in Hawaii.
Throughout her career, Botke received support from numerous critics, including Alma May Cook of the Los Angeles Herald Tribune. Besides the venues mentioned above, Botke’s extensive exhibition record includes prizes at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Society for Sanity in Art, and the Los Angeles County and California State Fairs; as well as group shows at the Paris Salon, the National Academy of Design in New York, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Pacific Southwest Exposition in Long Beach, California, and the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. Her work is in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Fleischer Museum in Scottsdale, Arizona, and the Irvine Museum and San Diego Museum of Art in California.
Jessie Arms Botke passed away in Santa Paula, California in 1971. There was a solo exhibition of her work at the Ventura County Historical Museum (now the Museum of Ventura County) in 1984.

Selection of Works by this Artist

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