Edward Biberman
The Railway Station
c. 1934

About the Item

The Railway Station, c. 1934, oil on canvas, signed lower right, titled verso and noted "34"; illustrated Kaufman, Jeffrey, Brush with Life: The Art of Being Edward Biberman (2007), 85 minutes (film) This work is part of our exhibition The Architectural World of Edward Biberman (1904 - 1986). About the Painting The Railway Station is an important early work by Edward Biberman. It is a prime example of Biberman's precisionist and magic realism oriented paintings from the 1930s. Painted in New York, The Railway Station shows the artist's keen interest in urban architecture. About the Artist Edward Biberman was one of California’s most important modernist painters. He was born in Philadelphia, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants. Biberman’s artistic career started at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts followed by three years of study in Paris, where he associated closely with Calder and Noguchi and exhibited at the Salon d'Automne, Grand Palais, in 1927 and the Salon des Independents in 1929. Upon his return to the United States, Biberman spent time in New York City, where he showed at many of the city’s premier galleries and museums. His works were selected for several of the Museum of Modern Art’s early exhibitions of American artists, including 46 Painters and Sculptors Under the Age of 35 (1930) and Murals by American Painters and Photographers (1932). Hoping to escape the pressures of the New York art world, Biberman moved to Los Angeles in 1936 where he could be close to his family, including his film director brother, Herbert Biberman, and his sister-in-law, the Academy Award winning actress, Gale Sondergaard. During the course of his long career, Biberman showed at the Salon d’Automne (Paris); the Whitney Museum of American Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), Corcoran Gallery, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and dozens of other museums and galleries across the US and in Europe. He enjoyed over forty-five solo exhibitions and his works were included in over one hundred group shows. Biberman completed three murals for public works projects, including his work Abbot Kinney and the Story of Venice for the Venice Post Office, which was installed for six months at LACMA in 2014. His works are in the permanent collections of more than a dozen museums, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, National Portrait Gallery (of the Smithsonian Institution), Butler Institute of American Art, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and LACMA. Several books are dedicated to Biberman’s art, as is a feature length documentary, Brush with Life: The Art of Being Edward Biberman (2007). Biberman’s art has undergone a resurgence of popularity during the past fifteen years with four solo or focused exhibitions, Edward Biberman Revisited (2009), Edward Biberman (2011-12), Lost Horizons: Mural Dreams of Edward Biberman (2014) and Edward Biberman, Abbot Kinney and the Story of Venice (2014), and representation in a number of other exhibitions, such as George Ault and 1940s America at the Smithsonian Institution (2011), Pacific Standard Time (2012) and Contraption: Rediscovering California Jewish Artists (2018). He is listed in Who was Who in American Art and all other standard references. Biberman’s portrait of Martin Luther King, I Have a Dream, is currently on view at LACMA at part of Black American Portraits, a companion exhibition to the Obama presidential and first lady portraits. Biberman’s brand of modernism can fairly be divided into four categories 1) precisionist urban scenes of New York and Southern California which celebrate the creations of humanity; 2) portraits which expose not only the historical context, but also the souls, of his subjects; 3) rural landscapes and still life paintings which portray the beauty of America and its flora; and 4) social realist works which explore the struggles, hopes and shortcomings of our society. Regardless of genre, Biberman had a unique sense of structure and color. His figures are at the same time specific and universal. Taken as a whole, Biberman’s body of work presents the viewer with a compelling and often daring vision of 20th century America and its art.

Creator:
Edward Biberman (1904 - 1986)
Creation Year:
c. 1934
Dimensions:
Height: 20 in (50.8 cm)Width: 30 in (76.2 cm)Depth: 1 in (2.54 cm)
Medium:
Oil
Movement & Style:
American Modern
Period:
1930-1939
Condition:
Gallery Location:
Los Angeles, CA
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU1859212202992
View Invoice