Raphael Soyer (December 25, 1899 – November 4, 1987) was a Russian-born American painter, draftsman, and printmaker. He is identified as a Social Realist because of his interest in men and women viewed in contemporary settings which included the streets, subways, salons and artists’ studios of New York City. He also wrote several books on his life and art.
He was adamant in his belief in representational art and strongly opposed the dominant force of abstract art during the late 1940s and early 1950s. Defending his position, he stated: “I choose to be a realist and a humanist in art.” He was an artist of the Great Depression.
Among Soyer’s portrait subjects were artists and writers who were his friends; these included Allen Ginsberg, Arshile Gorky, Chaim Gross, Gitel Steed and Edward Hopper.
I have a guest V. Note today from our printmaking instructor Nikki Barber. Back in April 2020, Nikki interviewed Sam Davidson, of Davidson Galleries in Seattle. Nikki asked Sam about his favorite works in the Davidson collection. This is a delightful interview about a variety of printmaking artists around the globe, with interesting work I …
Artist Talk Nikki Barber on the Scientific Method TODAY! January 28th 2019, 5:30-7:00pm Bellevue College, Gallery Space D271 Science and art are not mutually exclusive. Both are used to explain and make sense of the world around us. Nikki uses her strong scientific background in biology and art to develop her printmaking process, and uses …
[image_with_animation image_url=”8109″ alignment=”” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] What does wax do for an oil painting? In addition to the protective qualities of a top coat, wax unifies the surface of a painting. Each pigment has varying degrees of matte and shiny, and each brush stroke can have slightly more, or slightly less medium, resulting in a …
Raphael Soyer
Raphael Soyer (December 25, 1899 – November 4, 1987) was a Russian-born American painter, draftsman, and printmaker. He is identified as a Social Realist because of his interest in men and women viewed in contemporary settings which included the streets, subways, salons and artists’ studios of New York City. He also wrote several books on his life and art.
He was adamant in his belief in representational art and strongly opposed the dominant force of abstract art during the late 1940s and early 1950s. Defending his position, he stated: “I choose to be a realist and a humanist in art.” He was an artist of the Great Depression.
Among Soyer’s portrait subjects were artists and writers who were his friends; these included Allen Ginsberg, Arshile Gorky, Chaim Gross, Gitel Steed and Edward Hopper.
(source: wikipedia)
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[image_with_animation image_url=”8109″ alignment=”” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] What does wax do for an oil painting? In addition to the protective qualities of a top coat, wax unifies the surface of a painting. Each pigment has varying degrees of matte and shiny, and each brush stroke can have slightly more, or slightly less medium, resulting in a …