TitleArtist in the Studio
Artist
Jules Kirschenbaum
(1930 - 2000)
Date1968
MediumAcrylic on canvas
DimensionsUnframed: 59 3/4 x 52 1/8 in.
Framed: 60 5/8 x 52 7/8 x 1 3/4 in.
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY
Object number2009.19
Label TextJules Kirschenbaum was part of a small but important strain of American representational painting during the post-war period that was overshadowed by Abstract Expressionism. He may be counted among other artists such as George Tooker, Paul Cadmus, Andrew Wyeth, and others who were part of what Lincoln Kirstein called "Magic Realism" or "Symbolic Realism" in the 1950s. While they were never considered a group of artists, there was a common tendency among them to combine aspects of Northern Renaissance painting with Surrealism to create an alternate type of modernism from abstraction that outwardly dealt with humanistic themes. "Artist in the Studio" shows Kirschenbaum's wife, artist Cornelis Ruthenberg, in her studio and illustrates Kirschenbaum's interest in playing with interior spaces through the juxtaposition of the flatness of the floor boards against a deep recession of the table in the background. It has been suggested that the seemingly unfinished areas of the painting were a result of the influence of Larry Rivers on the artist.
