Reuben Nakian

American, 1897-1986

BiographyReuben Nakian: One of America's most distinguished twentieth century sculptors, Reuben Nakian was also a fine lithographic artist. Reuben Nakian began his studies at the Robert Henri School, under Homer Boss and A. S. Baylinson, and then completed his education at the Art Students League of New York (1912). At the age of twenty, Reuben Nakian was apprenticed to Paul Manship and worked under this famous art deco sculptor for a period of three years. He then traveled extensively in both Italy and France.

Reuben Nakian's first one man exhibition was held in New York in 1933. Since that time his sculpture, drawings and prints were exhibited both nationally and internationally and he won major awards in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Venice and Sao Paulo, Brazil. Today, such major galleries as the Art Institute of Chicago, New York State University, the Museum of Modern art, New York, and the Hirshhorn Museum include his art in their collections. In the Spring of 1999, the prestigious Corcoran Gallery, Washington, DC, held a major retrospective exhibition of Reuben Nakian's sculpture and prints.

One scholar writes, "Renowned for his free and gestural use of a wide variety of materials, Reuben Nakian is critically recognized for being one of the few sculptors to create works in response to painted Abstract Expressionism. He succeeded in transferring the charged emotional energy characteristic of these paintings into works of clay, terra cotta, plaster, welded steel and bronze." This same "emotional energy" is evident in many of Reuben Nakian's lithographs such as the mythological based, "Europa and The Bull"

Edition:
Most of Reuben Nakian's original lithographs date from the 1960's. At this juncture he became interested in the artistic possibilities of lithography and spent considerable time at the famous Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles, often working with the master printer, Bohuslav Horak. None of the prints that Reuben Nakian made at this time were published in numbered editions but it is believed that all were created in editions of between fifty and one hundred impressions.

-Richard Born

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