Artists & Designers

Max Weber was an American artist born in Russia to Orthodox Jewish parents. He came to the United States when he was ten years old. From 1905 to 1909 he traveled extensively in Europe, meeting Paul Cezanne, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso.

Born in 1884 in Leghorn, Italy, Amedeo Modigliani, the fourth son of a Jewish banker, began his art career through study in both Florence and Venice before moving to Paris in 1906. Once there he quickly immersed himself in the city's stimulating artistic life, meeting people such as Picasso, Max Jacob, Kisling, and Lipchitz.

Emil Nolde was a German Expressionist painter and graphic artist. He was trained as a woodcarver, then studied painting at the Academie Julian in Paris and then under Adolf Hölzel, from whom he learned the expressive potential of color. He was a deeply religious man, and his aim was to express his religious feeling through color, using violent color clashes and grotesque distortions.

Born in Santiago de Chile in 1911, Roberto Matta's academic education was completed in Chile before he moved to Paris in 1933. His architectural training qualified him for a draughtsman's position in Le Corbusier's studio from 1935-37. However, during this time, a Spanish poet, Federico García Lorca, introduced Matta to Salvador Dalí and the Surrealists, which caused him to move toward painting rather than architecture.

Born in Le Cateau-Cambresis, France in 1869, Henri Matisse began his art career at age 21 during a convalescent period and soon gave up his law practice to study art in Paris. During his early painting career (1890-1905), he produced restrained Chardin-like interiors and still lifes.

Born in 1879 in Germany, Paul Klee had his initial art training in Munich just prior to 1900. He also learned to appreciate music from his musician father and was never able to completely separate the two art forms. After an extended trip through Europe, he settled in Munich and remained there until 1920.

Born in 1903 in New York. Gottlieb received his initial training in New York under John Sloan and Robert Henri. He later traveled and studied throughout Europe before returning to New York in 1930, for his first exhibition of Expressionistic figures and landscapes.

Jacob Lawrence, one of the most significant and influential artists of the African American experience in the mid-20th century, was born in 1917 in Atlantic City. He studied at the Harlem Art Center with painter Charles Alston and at the American Artists School. Lawrence taught at the University of Washington in Seattle, Black Mountain College in North Carolina, and at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.