By Todros Geller
Located in Surfside, FL
Todros Geller (1889 – 1949) was a Jewish American artist and teacher best known as a master printmaker and a leading artist among Chicago’s art community.Geller was born in Vinnytsia, the Russian Empire (now Ukraine) in 1889.[2] He studied art in Odessa and continued his studies after moving to Montreal in 1906 where he immigrated to Canada. He married and moved to Chicago in 1918, where he studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago until 1923.
Geller produced paintings, woodcuts, woodcarvings, and etchings. His work focused on Jewish tradition, often including moralistic themes and social commentary, shtetl, ghetto life, and the intersection of Jewish tradition with modern-day Chicago. He regarded art as a tool for social reform and he spent a large part of his career teaching art. His work was commissioned for stained glass windows, bookplates, community centers and Yiddish and English books. He was regarded as a leader in the field of synagogue and religious art. He designed stained glass window for synagogues in Omaha, Fort Worth, Dayton, Stamford, and Chicago Heights. Over the course of his career he illustrated more than 40 books.
In addition to conducting classes in his studio, Geller was head of art at the Jewish People’s Institute (JPI), supervisor of art for the Board of Jewish Education and director of art for the College of Jewish Studies (which became the Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership) and taught at Hull House. Many prominent Chicago artists studied drawing and painting under Geller. Geller was a source of inspiration to Aaron Bohrod and Mitchell Siporin, among others. Irene Gordon was also among his pupils.
In 1926, Geller formed what would become a lengthy working relationship with Chicago publisher and cultural activist L. M. Shteyn (a pseudonym for Yitshak Leyb Fradkin, anglicized as L.M. Stein in his English language correspondence). Shteyn and Geller shared a similar ideology, were both considered radical progressives, were part of the Chicago Jewish Left who worked to promote the Yiddish language and they both supported the Soviet Union for its commitment to the Yiddish language and to the Jewish settlement in Birobidzhan. Shteyn's Yiddish press, the L. M. Shteyn Farlag, published at least eight monographs illustrated by Geller and four art albums dedicated to his work.
Geller was one of the founding members of "Around the Palette" in Chicago in 1926, a club where artists shared their personal views of art and its role in society. The club became the "American Jewish Art Club", in 1940 and subsequently the "American Jewish Artists Club" in the early 1990s. Other founding members included Emil Armin, David Bekker, Aaron Bohrod, Fritzi Brod...
Category
Early 20th Century Modern Charles Laplante Art
