Rosenberg & Co. is pleased to present John Graham: A Mentor of Modernism, a group exhibition showing the momentous impact of artist, writer, and curator, John Graham. Bringing together works from eight lauded modern artists within Graham's circle, the exhibition illustrates the critical role that Graham played in New York’s modernist scene and his remarkable influence on foundational Abstract Expressionists.
Born Ivan Gratianovitch Dombrowsky in Kiev, Ukraine, the young artist emigrated to the United States in 1920. Settling in New York, Graham anglicized his name and began his formal art training at the Art Students League, studying under John Sloan. During his time at the League, Graham explored a variety of modern styles in his work ranging from Post-Impressionism to Synthetic Cubism. Outside of his personal artistic output, Graham became a renowned art critic and writer, known for articulating the revolutionary potential of abstraction. Graham traveled to Paris frequently, and brought back a new, deep knowledge of modernism to his New York art circles, ultimately establishing himself as an emissary of contemporary European art.
In 1937, Graham authored System and Dialectics in Art, a treatise on modernism and the avant-garde that employed the Socratic method to explore themes of the primitive subconscious. The book became influential among young artists such as Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock. Throughout the 1930’s and 40’s, Graham counted Stuart Davis, Arshile Gorky, Adolph Gottlieb, David Smith, and Dorothy Dehner among his friends and admirers. Featured together in this exhibition, alongside Graham’s own art, works by these artists interact symbiotically through their shared references, such as Jungian themes of birds and masks, the metaphysical influences of Giorgio de Chirico, and the automatist practices borrowed from the surrealists, soon after adopted by the Abstract Expressionists.
Graham’s influence on these artists is perhaps best summarized by Dehner’s foreword to the 1971 edition of System and Dialectics of Art, “[Graham] brought the excitement of the French art world to us, a world he knew well from having lived and painted in Paris. ... What he said was very much to the point, profound, flavored with caustic humor. He showed us copies of Cahiers d'Art and other French art publications of which we had been unaware. He knew the painters of that time as well as the writers Éluard, Breton, and Gide.”
Artists included: Stuart Davis, Dorothy Dehner, John Graham, Arshile Gorky, Adolph Gottlieb, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Richard Pousette-Dart, and David Smith.
This exhibition would not have been possible without the support of the foundations and estates of the artists included in the show. We would like to thank the following galleries, collections, and foundations for lending their works and making this exhibition possible: The Estate of Richard Pousette-Dart, New York; Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York; Forum Gallery, New York; The Art Students League, New York; The Estate of David Smith, New York.
The exhibition is accompanied by an eponymous catalogue featuring an essay by Jillian Russo. Learn more here.