Henry Botkin Paintings

Henry Botkin (American 1896 - 1993) Abstract oil painting on canvas mounted to board Portrait of Old Man in Period Frame. Hand signed by the artist. Frame measure 31 inches x 24 inches, canvas measures 24 inches x 18 inches Mid century American Modernist Henry Botkin (1896-1983) born in Boston, Massachusetts, was an American abstract, modern and expressionist painter and illustrator; he was known for his Ashcan figure-views, still lifes, and non-objective paintings. He was active in artistic circles, served as president of four major art organizations (Artists Equity Association, American Abstract Artists, Group 256 Provincetown, and Federation of Modern Painters and Sculptors), and in 1955 organized the first exhibition of American abstract art at the Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, Japan. He was an illustrator for The Saturday Evening Post, Harpers, and The Century Magazine. Botkin was a cousin and close friend to composers, George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin. His work had a school of Paris period, a cubist period and an Abstract Expressionism period. After training at the Massachusetts College of Art, Botkin moved to New York City. He took classes in drawing and illustration at the Art Students League of New York and worked as an illustrator for Harper’s, The Saturday Evening Post and Century magazines. In the late 1930s Botkin changed his approach to painting, moving from the School of Paris Modernism and cubism that he had adopted after he left Boston. Botkin was known for painting the theater, still lifes, landscapes, and low-country blacks in a romantic manner that some criticized for lacking social realism. By the late 1940s he had turned to abstraction in oils and collage. He grew an interest in collage in the early 1950s, which dominated his work until the 1960s. He also organized the sale of five hundred and forty paintings at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, 1959. Botkin spoke on the radio, “The Voice of America,” television, lead panel discussions throughout the country, and lectured and taught privately in New York, California, and Provincetown, Massachusetts. Botkin was a cousin, close friend, and painting teacher to Gershwin. Gershwin collected many of Botkin's paintings, which people said corresponded in mood to Gershwin's music. Martha Severens wrote in her book, The Charleston Renaissance, "The interaction between the two cousins was a dynamic one, and Botkin created paintings that reflect Gershwin's music. Correspondences are found in subject and in style. Both had a genuine interest in African-American culture that preceded their visit to Folly Beach...