Social-realist painter Raphael Soyer joins the looooonnnngg list of painters I know nothing about. Learned that he emigrated to NY from Russia, became part of the Fourteenth Street School in the 1920s, and later taught at the Art Students League. While he created a number of studies of the unemployed during the Depression, he also focused on his family's middle class Jewish life, and here above, his fellow artists. He explained:
Farewell to Lincoln Square (1959) was painted in the Lincoln Arcade Building located in Lincoln Square, on the eve of it being demolished to make way for Lincoln Center. I loved that building. Many American painters from way back lived and worked there. The painting depicts the exodus of its denizens. . .with myself waving farewell. (from Painting the Century, R. Gibson, p. 178)
Others have pointed out that the woman in the foreground in Farewell echoes the central figure in Rodin's Burghers of Calais (1884-88) which I never would have picked up, but here it is below. Wonder if that's a subconcious connection on the part of the artist or an intentional one. What do you think?
Posts
Yes, there is something very similar in the posture and crestfallen look of the two figures. One of the reasons I like this post is because you help remove Soyer from my own likewise looooong list of artists I am completely unfamiliar with. Nice work. Thanks for sharing it with us.
ReplyDeleteThe woman in the foreground strikes me as a classical figure in contrapposto position. What's more, it's the repose of an athlete. That right hand is begging for a discus - or for the head of Goliath!
ReplyDeleteHave to confess I looked up contrapposto and learned that it does not mean "against the post office"as I had guessed - thanks to both for your comments.
ReplyDeleteThe woman on the left in red is my mother Cella who was a model for both of the Soyers. My earliest memories were in these studios and smelling the oil paint and turpentine.
ReplyDeleteYour mother? That's cool. Are you an artist as well?
ReplyDelete