Emil Bisttram

Geometric Abstraction

1939

Emil James Bisttram Born Hungary, 1895 Died New Mexico, 1976 Emil Bisttram was born in Hungary in 1895 and emigrated with his parents when he was eleven to America. Bisttram choose a more economically promising career in commercial art design due to his economic conditions. Bisttram opened his own art agency at the young age of twenty and during this time took classes with Leon Kroll at the Art Student League and with Jay Hambidge, an advocate of Dynamic Symmetry, at the New York School of Fine and Applied Art (renamed the Parsons School of Design). Dynamic Symmetry is a system of spacial balances and had a lifelong impact on Bisttram. Bisttram taught at Parsons from 1920 to 1925 and at the New York Master Institute of United Arts at the Roerich Museum from 1925-1930. The Institute was a spiritual inspiration to Bisttram because it advocated linking the fine arts together. His style of painting however was more influenced by Kandinsky and he began to experiment in non-objective art. Bisttram received many awards including a Guggenheim fellowship in 1931 to study mural painting. However, he decided to go to Mexico study with the great Mexican Muralist Diego Rivera. After returning from Mexico, Bisttram participated in an exhibition at the Whitney Museum for Guggenheim fellows in 1933 and received a commission to create a mural for the Taos, New Mexico courthouse. The Taos School of Art (renamed Bisttram School of Fine Art) which explored spiritualism and meditation was opened by Bisttram in 1932 where he taught some famous painters including Florence Miller Pierce. Together with Raymond Jonson and Lauren Harris, the Transcendental Painting Group was formed in Santa Fe, New Mexico from 1938-1942. This group was considered very radical for the time and the community reacted with much disdain. Bisttram continued to teach and paint and it is thought that Bisttram’s art truly represents transcendental ideas.