Prints by Raphael Soyer
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Prints by Raphael Soyer from the Collection of the Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester January 25 – April 22, 2012 right: Self-Portrait, 1963 Etching The Charles Rand Penney Collection of the Memorial Art Gallery, 75.304 below: Self-Portrait, 1967 Lithograph Gift of Diane Ambler, UR Class of 1971, and Ethan Grossman, 2011.48 right: Self Portrait (Know Thyself), 1982 Lithograph Gift of Diane Ambler, UR Class of 1971, and Ethan Grossman, 2011.50 Funds for this brochure were generously provided by Diane Ambler and Ethan Grossman. To learn more about works of art in the Gallery’s collection, school programs, and upcoming exhibitions and events, visit our website: mag.rochester.edu Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester 500 University Avenue Rochester, NY 14607 585.276.8900 Prints by Raphael Soyer January 25 – April 22, 2012 from the Collection of the Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester A prolific realist painter and printmaker, Raphael Soyer had a career that spanned most of the twentieth century with its various artistic ‘isms.’ New York was his first and only American home, to which he immigrated from Russia in 1912, and it became his muse: “I painted only what I saw in my neighborhood in New York City which I call my country…New York and I are a part of one another.” Soyer studied at Cooper Union’s night school, the National Academy of Design, and the Art Students League while he worked at a variety of day jobs to earn money for himself and his family. After 1929, when he had his first sho w, he was able to dedicate himself full-time to his art and his teaching. Soyer’s subjects were women (often dancers), street scenes, and, throughout his career, himself. Through the decades of the twentieth century in which leading critics promoted modernism and abstraction, Soyer remained faithful to the great figural tradition of Old Masters like Rembrandt as well as later painters like Degas, Corot, and Thomas Eakins, embracing their humanistic above right: focus. His own subjects, gracefully and tenderly rendered in paint or printer’s Veterans Waiting ink, are infused with a penetrative ‘soul’ that he attributed to the influence of the Room, undated three cultures in which he developed —Russian, Jewish, and American. Color lithograph Gift of Diane Ambler, UR Class of 1971, and Presented here are Ethan Grossman, seven prints by Raphael 2011.51 Soyer from the Memorial right: Art Gallery’s permanent Self-Portrait, 1933 collection, five of which Lithograph are a recent gift from Gallery Purchase Fund, Diane Ambler, University 38.37 of Rochester Class of 1971, and Ethan Grossman. right: left, and on front in Girl with Parted Lips, 1962 detail: Lithograph Self-Portrait, 1954 Gift of Diane Ambler, UR Hand-colored Class of 1971, and Ethan lithograph Grossman , 2011.47 Gift of Diane Ambler, UR Class of 1971, and Ethan Grossman, 2011.49 All images by Raphael Soyer (1899-1987) ©Estate of Raphael Soyer, courtesy of Forum Gallery, New York Prints by Raphael Soyer January 25 – April 22, 2012 from the Collection of the Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester A prolific realist painter and printmaker, Raphael Soyer had a career that spanned most of the twentieth century with its various artistic ‘isms.’ New York was his first and only American home, to which he immigrated from Russia in 1912, and it became his muse: “I painted only what I saw in my neighborhood in New York City which I call my country…New York and I are a part of one another.” Soyer studied at Cooper Union’s night school, the National Academy of Design, and the Art Students League while he worked at a variety of day jobs to earn money for himself and his family. After 1929, when he had his first sho w, he was able to dedicate himself full-time to his art and his teaching. Soyer’s subjects were women (often dancers), street scenes, and, throughout his career, himself. Through the decades of the twentieth century in which leading critics promoted modernism and abstraction, Soyer remained faithful to the great figural tradition of Old Masters like Rembrandt as well as later painters like Degas, Corot, and Thomas Eakins, embracing their humanistic above right: focus. His own subjects, gracefully and tenderly rendered in paint or printer’s Veterans Waiting ink, are infused with a penetrative ‘soul’ that he attributed to the influence of the Room, undated three cultures in which he developed —Russian, Jewish, and American. Color lithograph Gift of Diane Ambler, UR Class of 1971, and Presented here are Ethan Grossman, seven prints by Raphael 2011.51 Soyer from the Memorial right: Art Gallery’s permanent Self-Portrait, 1933 collection, five of which Lithograph are a recent gift from Gallery Purchase Fund, Diane Ambler, University 38.37 of Rochester Class of 1971, and Ethan Grossman. right: left, and on front in Girl with Parted Lips, 1962 detail: Lithograph Self-Portrait, 1954 Gift of Diane Ambler, UR Hand-colored Class of 1971, and Ethan lithograph Grossman , 2011.47 Gift of Diane Ambler, UR Class of 1971, and Ethan Grossman, 2011.49 All images by Raphael Soyer (1899-1987) ©Estate of Raphael Soyer, courtesy of Forum Gallery, New York.