| John D. Graham | |
| Birth Name: | Ivan Gratianovitch Dombrowsky |
| Birth Place: | Kyiv, Ukraine |
| Death Place: | London, England |
| Field: | Painting |
| Training: | Art Students League |
| Movement: | Modern art, Abstract art |
| Patrons: | Katherine S. Dreier, Duncan Phillips (art collector) |
| Spouse: |
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| Children: | 4 |
John D. Graham ([1] Kyiv, Ukraine – June 27, 1961, London, England) was a Ukrainian–born American modernist and figurative painter, art collector, and a mentor of modernist artists in New York City.
Born Ivan Gratianovitch Dombrowsky in Kyiv, he immigrated to New York in 1920. He studied painting for the first time in his 30s, becoming deeply interested in modernism. In addition to gaining attention for his own work, he championed the new movement as a collector and curator. He was a mentor to a younger generation of American artists, who developed the style of Abstract Expressionism in the New York area. In the 1940s and 1950s, Graham developed a new figurative style derived from classical masters, which he first showed in paintings and drawings of Russian soldiers. He died in London, England.
Dombrovsky was born into an aristocratic family of Szlachta descent to parents Gratian-Ignatius Dombrovsky and Youzefa Dombrovsky (née Brezinska). He received a classical education and graduated from the St. Vladimir University (University of Kyiv) in 1913 with a degree in law. At some point during or shortly after his studies he married his first wife, Ebrenia (a.k.a. Catherine) Ignatevnia Makavelia, and had two children, Cyril and Maria.[2] He went on to serve as a cavalry officer under Czar Nicholas II during World War I in the Circassian Regiment of the Russian Imperial Army. For his efforts in the war, he earned the Saint George's Cross.
After the execution of Czar Nicholas II and his family in 1918 by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution, Dombrovsky was briefly imprisoned due to his noble class. He fled for a time to his mother's native Poland, which gained independence from the Russian Empire for a time after WWI. There he lived in Warsaw. He returned to fight in the Crimea with "the Whites", counter-revolutionaries, but decided to leave when the resistance collapsed.
In 1920, Dombrovsky immigrated to the United States with his second wife, Vera Aleksandrovna, and their son Nicholas.[3] They settled in New York City. He began calling himself John (Ivan in English) in the United States, and had his name officially changed to John D. Graham upon becoming a United States citizen in 1927.
Still under the name Dombrovsky (also spelled Dabrowsky), John began to study painting for the first time at the Art Students League of New York. There he also briefly assisted painter John F. Sloan, known as one of the Ashcan School. Dombrovsky soon attracted attention for his art.
In 1925 he relocated to Baltimore with his third wife, artist Elinor Gibson, whom he met at the Art Students League.[4] They had a son David Graham. The son later married Patricia Thompson, and died in Windermere, Florida. David Graham had gone to Europe to retrieve the remainder of his father's work upon the latter’s death. Patricia Thompson Graham later gave numerous works by his father to the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Other of Graham's relatively small collection of remaining works are in her sisters Kathryn and Jean's portfolios.While in Baltimore, Graham joined a group called The Modernists. He served as their secretary and exhibited in their gallery.[5] In this period, in addition to painting, Graham established himself as an art connoisseur and collector. He most notably established a collection of African art for Vanity Fair editor Frank Crowninshield.[6] Graham himself also collected traditional African art, and eventually developed part of his studio at 57 Greenwich Avenue into what he called the Primitive Arts Gallery.[7] He was greatly interested in developing knowledge of advances and changes in the art world, and kept in touch with what was taking place in Europe as well as the US.
Beginning in the 1930s, Graham became associated with the New York School as an artist and impresario. In that decade, he was painting in the abstract, post-cubist style of Pablo Picasso, who exerted wide leadership from Paris. Graham was a close friend with artists Wilhelmina Weber Furlong and her husband Thomas Furlong of the Art Students League.[8] [9]