Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 8

Maurice Kish
The Clown N.2 (In Green)

c.1940

About the Item

The imagery of Maurice Kish (1895-1987), whether factories or carousels, reliably subverts expectations. His vision hovers just around the unraveling edge of things, where what is solid and clear becomes ambiguous. He is fascinated, often delighted, by the falling apart. This unexpected, fresh perspective results in oddly affecting pictures of a now long-gone New York. Born Moishe in a town called Dvinsk, Russia (what is now Daugavpils, Latvia), Kish came with his family to New York when he was in his teens. The family settled in Brownsville, and for the rest of Kish’s life Brooklyn remained his home, though he moved from one neighborhood to another. He was close to his parents, who recognized his talent and supported his desire to become an artist. Kish attended the National Academy of Design as well as Cooper Union. His fellow students included many other immigrants and children of immigrants who were particularly receptive to the Modernism coming from Europe. As his career progressed, Kish himself applied different strains of Modernism to different purposes. For him, the story was held above all else. For years, Kish used the skills he acquired in art school to earn his living at a Manhattan glass factory where he painted floral designs on vases. During the Depression, Kish became a WPA painter in the Federal Art Project (FAP). FAP artists were given a mandate to create works that celebrated labor. The artists tended to be socially progressive, as Kish certainly was. Kish's work from this period, with its dark colors and rolling clouds, reveals the influence of Social Realists like Thomas Hart Benton. Apparent, too, is Kish's interest in the urban monumentality of Charles Sheeler. Kish's structures, however, lack Sheeler's almost dehumanized precision. Rather than the soulless, sleek machines of a typical modern urban dystopia, Kish's factories are shaggy old beasts as worn out as the laborers who troop through their doors. In End of Day's Toil, now at the Smithsonian, the viewer feels some affection for that rambly grandfather of a building all the tired small workers are leaving behind. Much of Kish's work, for the FAP and elsewhere, undermines received truths in a similar way. Some early works with themes from Yiddish culture are overtly humorous: a painting of a big jolly wedding guest, looking invitingly over her shoulder; a big fiddler on a small roof. Later, the humor becomes more ironic and reflective. In another work, the rather imposing organ grinder of the late 1930s looms above a child, yet his intermediary the cockatoo is bright and appealing, and offers the girl a fortune with his beak. This could read as an allegory for capitalism as easily as a straightforward colorful street scene. A small painting of a snowy day in Washington Square gives a bird's eye view of people bent against the wind walking alone or in pairs. The huge triumphal arch at the middle of it has no connection to their movements or their lives. Kish makes its size and centrality a quiet joke about the futility of grandiose gestures. Like the buildings in his FAP works, the arch has a personality. It is a landmark that looks a bit lost. A favorite location for Kish was Coney Island. For the laborers of the city, this was a place of great freedom and possibility. There were no bosses! Anyone could go to ride the rides and swim in the sea. For Kish, Coney Island, and especially Luna Park, became a place richly symbolic of workers’ rights. For the dreamlike paintings he set there, Kish looked past the Social Realists to the Expressionists. His colors are brilliant and his lines are wild. These images, joyfully unrestrained, give full voice to an anarchic vision merely hinted at in other works. If the structures of the earlier pictures came further out of the background than expected, these Coney Island structures completely take over the scene. Kish made several variations on the theme of the carousel as a site of revolution. In the moonlight, the horses have broken from their poles and spin away from the calm center. The workers have come to manic life, have released themselves from the yoke of labor and have abandoned their master, the merry-go-round. They escape to different corners of the pleasure park, dance together and ride the ferris wheel. One horse pretends to be a ticket seller. It is another allegory, one that depicts a worker's holiday paradise in carnival fashion. A painter who embraced ambiguity, Kish was himself a man who occupied many worlds simultaneously. Even during the period when he had shows at prestigious galleries and belonged to several artists' groups, he identified most strongly as an outsider, a Yiddischer. He wrote poetry in Yiddish throughout his life. In 1968, he published a volume of fifty years of these poems, Di Velt ist Mayn Lid (The World is My Song) in Yiddish, with no English translation, for his peers. Kish also translated English-language poetry into Yiddish and acted as a guide to help other Yiddish writers. Long after the art organizations ceased to provide meaning and fulfillment, Kish was a devoted member of the Yiddish Culture Association. In addition to painting and poetry, Kish was a dancer who taught during the summers at various Jewish resorts in the Catskills. Small but lithe, he also spent some years as an amateur boxer. Well into his eighties, Kish was proud of the quality of his handball game. By the 1940s, Kish’s career was going well, but his descriptive style of working began to fall out of fashion, supplanted by a more formal Abstraction. Kish was never able to support himself solely through his art, yet in the midst of all of his other activities, Kish continued to create his distinctive images of an immigrant's New York. He departed far from the mainstream, and in later years, seldom showed his work, preferring to keep it for himself (although he sometimes traded paintings for rent). Of making art, Kish said, "It is a sacred mission to enrich, to elevate and to make our lives more complete." His works, though frequently playful, encourage a second look at ordinary things. His irreverence elevates by revealing flaws where his audience, all workers and outsiders of a kind, can get a purchase. Kish's art fondly celebrates the beauty of the irregular.
  • Creator:
    Maurice Kish (1895-1987, American)
  • Creation Year:
    c.1940
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 13.25 in (33.66 cm)Width: 11.25 in (28.58 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
    Measurements include frame.
  • Gallery Location:
    Surfside, FL
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU38211481952
More From This SellerView All
  • The Preacher Rabbi "Der Maggid" Judaica Oil Painting WPA Jewish artist
    By Maurice Kish
    Located in Surfside, FL
    Genre: Modern Subject: Hasidic Rabbi preaching in Synagogue Medium: Oil Surface: Board, size includes artist decorated frame Country: United States The imagery of Maurice Kish (189...
    Category

    Mid-20th Century Modern Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Oil, Board

  • Modernist Oil Painting 1940s, Judaica Hasidic Rabbi in Jerusalem
    By Emanuel Glicenstein Romano
    Located in Surfside, FL
    Genre: Portrait Subject: Landscape Medium: Oil Surface: Board Country: United States EMANUEL ROMANO Rome, Italy, b. 1897, d. 1984 Emanuel Glicenstein Romano was born in Rome, September 23, 1897. His father Henryk Glicenstein was a sculptor and was living in Rome with his wife Helena (born Hirszenberg) when Emanuel was born. His father obtained Italian citizenship and adopted the name Enrico. Emanuel was brought up in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, England and Poland. In 1926 Emanuel and his father sailed for New York. They briefly visited Chicago. Romano's sister, Beatrice, and mother only joined them in New York years later. Romano changed his name on his arrival to America and some have erroneously speculated that this was to avoid antisemitic discrimination. In truth, as the son of a highly-regarded artist, Romano changed his name to ensure that any success or recognition he would later attain, would be the result of nothing other than his own merit as an artist, and not on account of his father's fame. In 1936 Romano was worked for the Federal Art Project creating murals. During and immediately after World War II, Romano created a series of allegorical works depicting graphic holocaust images that were held closely by the family until after his passing. One of these works is now on permanent display in the Florida Holocaust Museum in St. Petersburg Florida. Emanuel's father died in 1942 in a car accident before they could realize their shared dream of visiting Israel. In 1944 Romano, having completed his degree at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and the Art Institute of Chicago, began teaching at the City College of New York. Romano moved to Safed, Israel in 1953 and established an art museum in his father's memory, the Glicentein Museum. COLLECTIONS Indianapolis Museum of Art Metropolitan Museum of Art Boston Fine Arts Museum Fogg Museum Musée Nacional de France Recently his work has been added to the Florida Holocaust Museum collection. His notable works include his holocaust themed allegorical paintings as well as portraits of Marianne Moore, his father and William Carlos Williams...
    Category

    1970s American Modern Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Oil, Board

  • Judaica Rabbi Portrait Oil Painting American WPA Abstract Expressionist Artist
    By Morris Shulman
    Located in Surfside, FL
    Born in Savannah, Georgia in 1912, abstract expressionist painter Morris Shulman studied at the National Academy of Design, Art Students League and Hans Hofmann School of Art in New ...
    Category

    1940s American Modern Portrait Paintings

    Materials

    Encaustic, Oil, Board

  • Simka Simkhovitch WPA Artist Oil Painting Family Mother, Kids American Modernist
    By Simka Simkhovitch
    Located in Surfside, FL
    Simka Simkhovitch (Russian/American 1893 - 1949) This came with a small grouping from the artist's family, some were hand signed some were not. These were studies for larger paintings. Simka Simkhovitch (Симха Файбусович Симхович) (aka Simka Faibusovich Simkhovich) (Novozybkov, Russia May 21, 1885 O.S./June 2, 1885 N.S.—Greenwich, Connecticut February 25, 1949) was a Ukrainian-Russian Jewish artist and immigrant to the United States. He painted theater scenery in his early career and then had several showings in galleries in New York City. Winning Works Progress Administration (WPA) commissions in the 1930s, he completed murals for the post offices in Jackson, Mississippi and Beaufort, North Carolina. His works are in the permanent collections of the Dallas Museum of Art, the National Museum of American Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Born outside Kyiv (Petrograd Ukraine) into a Jewish family who owned a small department store. During a severe case of measles when he was seven, Simcha Simchovitch sketched the views outside his window and decided to become an artist, over his father's objections. Beginning in 1905, he studied at the Grekov Odessa Art School and upon completion of his studies in 1911 received a recommendation to be admitted to the Imperial Academy of Arts. Though he enrolled to begin classes in architecture, painting, and sculpture at the Imperial Academy, he was dropped from the school roster in December because of the quota on the number of Jewish students and drafted into the army. Simchovitch served as a private in the 175th Infantry Regiment Baturyn [ru] until his demobilization in 1912. Re-enrolling in the Imperial Academy, he audited classes. Simka Simkhovitch exhibited paintings and sculptures in 1918 as part of an exhibition of Jewish artists and in 1919 placed 1st in the competition "The Great Russian Revolution" with a painting called "Russian Revolution" which was hung in the State Museum of Revolution. In 1922, Simkha Simkhovitch exhibited at the International Book Fair in Florence (Italian: Fiera Internazionale del Libro di Firenze). In 1924, Simkhovitch came to the United States to make illustrations for Soviet textbooks and decided to immigrate instead. Initially he supported himself by doing commercial art and a few portrait commissions. In 1927, he was hired to paint a screen for a scene in the play "The Command to Love" by Fritz Gottwald and Rudolph Lothar which was playing at the Longacre Theatre on Broadway. Art dealers began clamoring for the screen and Simkhovitch began a career as a screen painter for the theater. Catching the attention of the screenwriter, Ernest Pascal, he worked as an illustrator for Pascal, who then introduced him to gallery owner, Marie Sterner. Simkhovitch's works appeared at the Marie Sterner Gallery beginning with a 1927 exhibit and were repeated the following year. Simkhovitch had an exhibit in 1929 at Sterner's on circus paintings. In 1931, he held a showing of works at the Helen Hackett Gallery, in New York City and later that same year he was one of the featured artists of a special exhibit in San Francisco at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park. The exhibit was coordinated by Marie Sterner and included four watercolors, including one titled "Nudes". He is of the generation of Russian Soviet artists such as Isaac Pailes, Serge Charchoune, Marc Chagall, Chana Orloff, Isaac Ilyich Levitan, and Ossip Zadkine. In 1936, Simkhovitch was selected to complete the mural for the WPA Post office project in Jackson, Mississippi. The mural was hung in the post office and courthouse in 1938 depicted a plantation theme. Painted on the wall behind the judge’s bench, “Pursuits of Life in Mississippi”, a depiction of black workers engaged in manual labor amid scenes of white professionals and socialites, was eventually covered over in later years during renovations due to its stereotypical African American imagery. The following year, his painting "Holiday" won praise at an exhibition in Lincoln, Nebraska. In 1940, Simkhovitch's second WPA post office project was completed when four murals, "The Cape Lookout Lighthouse and the Orville W. Mail Boat", "The Wreck of the Crissie Wright", "Sand Ponies" and "Canada Geese" were installed in Beaufort, North Carolina. The works were commissioned in 1938 and did not generate the controversy that the Jackson mural had. The main mural is "The Wreck of the Crissie Wright" and depicts a shipwreck which had occurred in Beaufort in 1866. "The Cape Lookout Lighthouse and the Orville W. Mail Boat" depicted the lighthouse built in 1859 and the mail boat that was running mail during the time which Simkhovitch was there. The boat ran mail for the area until 1957. "Sand Ponies" shows the wild horses common to the North Carolina barrier islands and "Canada Geese" showed the importance of hunting and fishing in the area. All four murals were restored in the 1990s by Elisabeth Speight, daughter of two other WPA muralists, Francis Speight...
    Category

    1930s American Modern Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Oil, Board

  • Simka Simkhovitch WPA Artist Oil Painting Family Mother, Kids American Modernist
    By Simka Simkhovitch
    Located in Surfside, FL
    Simka Simkhovitch (Russian/American 1893 - 1949) This came with a small grouping from the artist's family, some were hand signed some were not. These were studies for larger paintings. Simka Simkhovitch (Симха Файбусович Симхович) (aka Simka Faibusovich Simkhovich) (Novozybkov, Russia May 21, 1885 O.S./June 2, 1885 N.S.—Greenwich, Connecticut February 25, 1949) was a Ukrainian-Russian Jewish artist and immigrant to the United States. He painted theater scenery in his early career and then had several showings in galleries in New York City. Winning Works Progress Administration (WPA) commissions in the 1930s, he completed murals for the post offices in Jackson, Mississippi and Beaufort, North Carolina. His works are in the permanent collections of the Dallas Museum of Art, the National Museum of American Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Born outside Kyiv (Petrograd Ukraine) into a Jewish family who owned a small department store. During a severe case of measles when he was seven, Simcha Simchovitch sketched the views outside his window and decided to become an artist, over his father's objections. Beginning in 1905, he studied at the Grekov Odessa Art School and upon completion of his studies in 1911 received a recommendation to be admitted to the Imperial Academy of Arts. Though he enrolled to begin classes in architecture, painting, and sculpture at the Imperial Academy, he was dropped from the school roster in December because of the quota on the number of Jewish students and drafted into the army. Simchovitch served as a private in the 175th Infantry Regiment Baturyn [ru] until his demobilization in 1912. Re-enrolling in the Imperial Academy, he audited classes. Simka Simkhovitch exhibited paintings and sculptures in 1918 as part of an exhibition of Jewish artists and in 1919 placed 1st in the competition "The Great Russian Revolution" with a painting called "Russian Revolution" which was hung in the State Museum of Revolution. In 1922, Simkha Simkhovitch exhibited at the International Book Fair in Florence (Italian: Fiera Internazionale del Libro di Firenze). In 1924, Simkhovitch came to the United States to make illustrations for Soviet textbooks and decided to immigrate instead. Initially he supported himself by doing commercial art and a few portrait commissions. In 1927, he was hired to paint a screen for a scene in the play "The Command to Love" by Fritz Gottwald and Rudolph Lothar which was playing at the Longacre Theatre on Broadway. Art dealers began clamoring for the screen and Simkhovitch began a career as a screen painter for the theater. Catching the attention of the screenwriter, Ernest Pascal, he worked as an illustrator for Pascal, who then introduced him to gallery owner, Marie Sterner. Simkhovitch's works appeared at the Marie Sterner Gallery beginning with a 1927 exhibit and were repeated the following year. Simkhovitch had an exhibit in 1929 at Sterner's on circus paintings. In 1931, he held a showing of works at the Helen Hackett Gallery, in New York City and later that same year he was one of the featured artists of a special exhibit in San Francisco at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park. The exhibit was coordinated by Marie Sterner and included four watercolors, including one titled "Nudes". He is of the generation of Russian Soviet artists such as Isaac Pailes, Serge Charchoune, Marc Chagall, Chana Orloff, Isaac Ilyich Levitan, and Ossip Zadkine. In 1936, Simkhovitch was selected to complete the mural for the WPA Post office project in Jackson, Mississippi. The mural was hung in the post office and courthouse in 1938 depicted a plantation theme. Painted on the wall behind the judge’s bench, “Pursuits of Life in Mississippi”, a depiction of black workers engaged in manual labor amid scenes of white professionals and socialites, was eventually covered over in later years during renovations due to its stereotypical African American imagery. The following year, his painting "Holiday" won praise at an exhibition in Lincoln, Nebraska. In 1940, Simkhovitch's second WPA post office project was completed when four murals, "The Cape Lookout Lighthouse and the Orville W. Mail Boat", "The Wreck of the Crissie Wright", "Sand Ponies" and "Canada Geese" were installed in Beaufort, North Carolina. The works were commissioned in 1938 and did not generate the controversy that the Jackson mural had. The main mural is "The Wreck of the Crissie Wright" and depicts a shipwreck which had occurred in Beaufort in 1866. "The Cape Lookout Lighthouse and the Orville W. Mail Boat" depicted the lighthouse built in 1859 and the mail boat that was running mail during the time which Simkhovitch was there. The boat ran mail for the area until 1957. "Sand Ponies" shows the wild horses common to the North Carolina barrier islands and "Canada Geese" showed the importance of hunting and fishing in the area. All four murals were restored in the 1990s by Elisabeth Speight, daughter of two other WPA muralists, Francis Speight...
    Category

    1930s American Modern Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Oil, Board

  • Modernist American Judaica Painting Gaon and his Disciples
    By Ervin B. Nussbaum
    Located in Surfside, FL
    In this painting, Nussbaum portrays a Rabbi, or Rebbe outside the synagogue The vibrant colors used in this painting seem to overlay each other without being previous mixed. Ervin B...
    Category

    20th Century American Modern Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Oil, Board

You May Also Like
  • Vintage Mid-Century Modern Swedish Figurative Framed Oil Painting - The Children
    Located in Bristol, GB
    THE CHILDREN Size: 36.5 x 66 cm (including frame) Oil on board A richly textured and endearing mid century modernist style figurative portrait, painted in oil onto board. Rendered ...
    Category

    1950s Modern Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Oil, Board

  • Vintage Mid-Century Modern Figurative Portrait Framed Oil Painting - Lone
    Located in Bristol, GB
    LONE Oil on Board Size: 52 x 44.5 cm (including frame) A very well done mid-century modernist portrait composition, executed in oil onto board. A single seated figure sits alone, l...
    Category

    1950s Modern Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Board, Oil

  • Vintage Mid-Century Swedish Unframed Figurative Oil Painting - Affection
    Located in Bristol, GB
    AFFECTION Size: 41 x 33 cm Oil on board A tender and captivating mid-century figurative painting, executed in oil onto board and dated 1944. A female figure in a flowing red dress ...
    Category

    1940s Modern Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Oil, Board

  • Vintage Mid-Century Framed Figurative Oil Painting - Double Sided Portrait I
    Located in Bristol, GB
    DOUBLE SIDED PORTRAIT I Size: 48 x 30cm unframed Oil on board An intriguing double sided oil on board: one side depicts a pair of women looking into a book, and the other side featu...
    Category

    1950s Modern Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Oil, Board

  • Vintage Mid-Century Framed Figurative Oil Painting - Double Sided Portrait II
    Located in Bristol, GB
    DOUBLE SIDED PORTRAIT II Size: 48 x 30cm unframed Oil on board An intriguing double sided oil on board: one side depicts a pair of women looking into a book, and the other side feat...
    Category

    1950s Modern Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Oil, Board

  • English mid century oil painting Portrait of Miniature Black Poodle
    Located in Woodbury, CT
    English mid century oil painting Portrait of a Miniature Poodle Kate Gray was a British animal portrait painter during the last half of the 20th century. She also painted flower subj...
    Category

    1960s Modern Animal Paintings

    Materials

    Oil, Board

Recently Viewed

View All