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David Aronson
Judaica Bronze Sculpture "Rabbi" Figure Jewish American Boston Figural Modernist

About the Item

Aronson, David 1923- David Aronson, son of a rabbi, was born in Lithuania in 1923 and immigrated to America at the age of five. He settled in Boston, Massachusetts where he studied at the school of the Museum of Fine Arts under Karl Zerbe, a German painter well known in the early 1900s. Aronson later taught at the school of the Museum of Fine Arts for fourteen years and founded the School of Fine Art at Boston University where he is today a professor emeritus. An internationally renowned sculptor & painter, Aronson has won acclaim for his interpretation of themes from the Hebrew Talmud and Kabala. His best known works include bronze castings, encaustic paintings, and pastels. His work is included in many important public and private collections, and has been shown in several museum retrospectives around the country. He is considered to be one of the most important 20th century American artists. At twenty-two David Aronson had his first one-man show at New York's Niveau Gallery. The next year, six of his Christological paintings were included in the Fourteen Americans exhibition at Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art where Aronson’s work was included alongside abstract expressionists Arshile Gorky, Robert Motherwell and Isamu Noguchi. In the 1950s, Aronson turned more toward his Jewish heritage for the inspiration for his art. Folklore as well as Kabalistic and other transcendental writings influenced his work greatly. The Golem (a legendary figure, brought to life by the Maharal of Prague out of clay to protect the Jewish community during times of persecution) and the Dybbuk (an evil spirit that lodges itself in the soul of a living person until exorcised) frequently appear in his work. In the sixties, Aronson turned to sculpture. His work during this period is best exemplified by a magnificent 8’ x 4’ bronze door which now stands at the entrance to Frank Lloyd Wright's Johnson Foundation Conference Center for the Arts in Racine, Wisconsin. In the seventies and eighties, Aronson continued his work in pastel drawings, paintings, and sculptures, often exploring religion and the frailties of man's nature. During this time, in addition to a traveling retrospective exhibition and many one-man shows in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Boston at the Pucker-Safrai Gallery on Newbury Street, Aronson won many awards and became a member of the National Academy of Design in New York. Two years ago he retired from teaching to work full-time in his studio in Sudbury, Massachusetts. included in the catalog Contemporary Religious Imagery in American Art Catalog for an exhibition held at the Ringling Museum of Art, March 1-31, 1974. Artists represented: David Aronson, Leonard Baskin, Max Beckmann, Hyman Bloom, Fernando Botero, Paul Cadmus, Marvin Cherney, Arthur G. Dove, Philip Evergood, Adolph Gottlieb, Jonah Kinigstein, Rico Lebrun, Jack Levine, Louise Nevelson, Barnett Newman, Abraham Rattner, Ben Shahn, Mark Tobey, Max Weber, William Zorach and others. Selected Awards 1990, Certificate of Merit, National Academy of Design 1976, Purchase Prize, National Academy of Design 1976, Joseph Isidore Gold Medal, National Academy of Design 1976, Purchase Prize in Drawing, Albrecht Art Museum 1975, Isaac N. Maynard Prize for Painting, National Academy of Design 1973, Samuel F. B. Morse Gold Medal, National Academy of Design 1967, Purchase Prize, National Academy of Fine Arts 1967, Adolph and Clara Obrig Prize, National Academy of Design 1963, Gold Medal, Art Directors Club of Philadelphia 1961, 62, 63, Purchase Prize, National Institute of Arts and Letters 1960, John Siimon Guggenheim Fellowship 1958, Grant in Art, National Institute of Arts and Letters 1954, First Prize, Tupperware Annual Art Fund Award 1954, Grand Prize, Third Annual Boston Arts Festival 1953, Second Prize, Second Annual Boston Arts Festival 1952, Grand Prize, First Annual Boston Arts Festival 1946, Traveling Fellowship, School of the Museum of Fine Arts 1946, Purchase Prize, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts 1944, First Popular Prize, Institute of Contemporary Art 1944, First Judge's Prize, Institute of Contemporary Art Selected Public Collections Art Institute of Chicago Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Bryn Mawr College Brandeis University Tupperware Museum, Orlando, Florida DeCordova Museum Museum of Modern Art Print Collection, New York Atlanta University Atlanta Art Association University of Nebraska Whitney Museum of Art Corcoran Museum of Art Smithsonian Institution Portland Art Museum Milwaukee Art Institute Hunter Art Gallery Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts Hebrew Teacher's College, Brookline, Mass. Container Corporation of America Stone Foundation The Johnson Foundation Worcester Art Museum University of New Hampshire Chico State College Gallery Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute Witherspoon Art Gallery Skirball Museum, Los Angeles University of Judaism, Los Angeles Danforth Museum of Art Syracuse University Boston University Selected Solo Exhibitions MB Modern, New York, 1997 Horwitch Newman Galleries, Scottsdale, Arizona, 1996 Louis Newman Galleries, Beverly Hills, 1977, 1982, 1984, 1986, 1989, 1992 Pucker-Safrai Gallery, Boston, 1976, 1978, 1984, 1986, 1990 Mickelson Gallery, Washington, D.C., 1985 (retrospective) Southeastern Middlesex University, Dartmouth, Massachusetts, 1983 (retrospective) Sadye Bronfman Art Center, Montreal, 1982 Towne Gallery, Lenox, Massachusetts, 1982 Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, 1979 (retrospective) American Museum of Jewish History, Philadelphia, 1979 (retrospective) Jewish Museum and National Academy of Design, 1979 (retrospective) Bernard Danenberg Galleries, New York, 1969, 1972 Verle Gallery, West Hartford, Connecticut, 1967 Kovler Gallery, Chicago, 1966 Hunter Gallery, Chatanooga, Tennessee, 1965 J. Thomas Gallery, Provincetown, 1964 Westhampton Gallery, New York, 1961 Rex Evans Gallery, Los Angeles, 1961 Nordness Gallery, New York, 1960, 1963, 1969 The Downtown Gallery, 1953 Boris Mirski Gallery, Boston, 1951, 1959, 1969 Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1946 Niveau Gallery, New York, 1945, 1956
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