Isaac Soyer Explained

Isaac Soyer
Birth Name:Isaac Schoar
Birth Date:April 26, 1902
Birth Place:Borisoglebsk[1] or Tambov (disputed), Russia
Death Date:July 8, 1981
Death Place:Manhattan, New York, United States
Nationality:American
Education:National Academy of Design, Cooper Union, Educational Alliance
Movement:Social realist
Known For:Painter
Works:Employment Agency (1937)

Isaac Soyer (April 26, 1902 – July 8, 1981) was a Russian-born American social realist painter and educator. His art work often portrayed working-class people of New York City in his paintings.[2]

Biography

He was born as Isaac Schoar on April 26, 1902, in Russia. He was the fourth of six children; his older twin brothers Moses Soyer and Raphael Soyer were also painters.[3] Their father, Abraham Shauer, a Hebrew scholar, writer and teacher,[4] raised his six children in an intellectual environment in which much emphasis was placed on academic and artistic pursuits. Their mother, Bella, was an embroiderer.[5] Their cousin was painter and meteorologist Joshua Zalman Holland.[6] Due to the many difficulties for the Jewish population in the late Russian Empire, the Soyer family was forced to emigrate in 1912 to the United States, where they ultimately settled in the Bronx.[7] [8] The family name changed from Schoar to Soyer during immigration.[9]

Isaac Soyer studied at the National Academy of Design, Cooper Union, Educational Alliance and studied in Paris and Madrid.[10] [11]

Soyer painted portraits of friends and relatives and vignettes of working-class life. He taught classes at the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project.[12]

Soyer's work Employment Agency (1937) reveals the social realities of the years of the Great Depression. It features the image of a Black woman and three white men waiting for a job interview response.[13] [14]

During World War II, Soyer worked at Bell Aircraft Corporation in Buffalo, New York.[15]

Soyer was an art educator at a number of institutions. From 1941 until 1947 he taught at Albright Art School at the University of Buffalo; and from 1947 until 1971 at Brooklyn Museum Art School.[16] He additionally taught at Art Institute of Buffalo, Niagara Falls Art School, Educational Alliance, New School for Social Research (1968), Art Students League of New York (1969).[17] [18]

Death and legacy

Soyer died of a heart attack at Lenox Hill Hospital on July 8, 1981, at age 79; he was residing in Manhattan at the time.[19]

Several of his works are in the collections of public museums, such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, and the Dallas Museum of Art.

References

  1. Web site: Soyer . The Columbia Encyclopedia . 2001 . 2007-04-26 . https://web.archive.org/web/20070203205048/http://www.bartleby.com/65/so/Soyer.html . 2007-02-03 . dead .
  2. Web site: 2007. Collections, Isaac Soyer. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20110607035448/http://americanart.si.edu/search/artist_bio.cfm?ID=4564. 2011-06-07. 2007-04-26. Smithsonian American Art Museum.
  3. Web site: Isaac Soyer. 2020-11-10. Smithsonian American Art Museum. en-US. Painter, trained at Cooper Union..
  4. Book: Harshav, Benjamin. The Polyphony of Jewish Culture. 2007. Stanford University Press. 978-0-8047-5512-2. 128. en.
  5. News: Berman. Avis. December 1979. Raphael Soyer at 80: 'Not painting would be like not breathing': Smithsonian American Art/Portrait Gallery Library. ARTnews.
  6. News: Schudel. Matt. 2011-05-28. A Local Life: Joshua Z. Holland, 89, a man of science with an artist's soul. en-US. Washington Post. 2020-11-10. 0190-8286.
  7. Web site: A Finding Aid to the Raphael Soyer papers, 1933-1989 Digitized Collection. 2020-11-10. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. en.
  8. News: Richard. Paul. 1982-08-05. The Souls of Raphael Soyer. en-US. Washington Post. 2020-11-10. 0190-8286.
  9. Web site: Raphael Soyer, American, born Russia, 1899 - 1987, Schoar, Raphael. 2020-11-10. The National Gallery of Art (NGA).
  10. Book: The Art Students League. 1978. Art Students League of New York. 70. en.
  11. Book: Krane, Susan. The Wayward Muse: A Historical Survey of Painting in Buffalo. 1987. Albright-Knox Art Gallery. 978-0-914782-63-6. 196. en.
  12. Web site: 3 September 1998. Ex-Prof of Anatomy Retires To Life of Sculpting, Painting. subscription. 2020-11-10. Newspapers.com. Courier-Post. 62. en.
  13. Web site: Baldwin. Nick. 4 October 1981. Thirties-art Survey at Cedar-Rapids. subscription. 2020-11-10. Newspapers.com. The Des Moines Register. 22. en.
  14. Book: Hills. Patricia. The Figurative Tradition and the Whitney Museum of American Art: Paintings and Sculpture from the Permanent Collection. Tarbell. Roberta K.. Art. Whitney Museum of American. 1980. University of Delaware Press. 978-0-87413-184-0. 83. en.
  15. Book: Magazine of Art. 1944. American Federation of Arts. 74. en. Painters in War Plants.
  16. Book: Kleeblatt. Norman L.. Painting a Place in America: Jewish Artists in New York, 1900-1945 : a Tribute to the Educational Alliance Art School. Chevlowe. Susan. 1991. Jewish Museum. 978-0-253-28536-2. en. From 1941 to 1947, Soyer taught at the Albright Art School at the University of Buffalo.
  17. Book: Eisenstadt, Peter. The Encyclopedia of New York State. 2005-05-19. Syracuse University Press. 978-0-8156-0808-0. 123. en.
  18. Web site: 2001. Isaac Soyer. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20110622100036/http://www.askart.com/AskART/artists/biography.aspx?searchtype=BIO&artist=27364. 2011-06-22. 2007-04-28. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition.
  19. News: 1981-07-16. Isaac Soyer, a Painter Of the American Scene. en-US. The New York Times. 2020-11-11. 0362-4331.

External links

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