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Irving Norman Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

American, Lithuanian, 1906-1989

The Lithuanian-American artist Irving Norman was a social Surrealist who painted large-scale and highly detailed critiques of contemporary life with hopes that viewers would consider the consequences of their actions and change their behavior.

Influenced by the dire conditions of the Great Depression, Norman’s massive canvases feature armies of clone-like figures behaving in the clockwork manner in which they have been programmed. He moved from New York to Los Angeles in 1934 before helping to defend the Spanish Republic from the fascist Franco dictatorship.

Norman survived the Spanish Civil War and in 1939 settled on Catalina Island off the Southern California coast, where he began drawing and painting from the atrocities he had witnessed. In 1940, he moved to San Francisco and had a solo exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Art two years later. Norman then traveled to Mexico City and saw the murals of Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros before moving to New York City to study at the Art Students League from 1946 to 1947. He returned to San Francisco in the late 1940s. In 1988, fire destroyed Norman’s home, studio, artwork and personal papers.

Find original Irving Norman paintings and prints on 1stDibs.

(Biography provided by Heather James Fine Art)

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Artist: Irving Norman
Big City
By Irving Norman
Located in Palm Desert, CA
A painting by Irving Norman. "Big City" is a social surrealism city scape, watercolor on paper in a dark palette of reds, blues, and yellows by artist Irving ...
Category

Mid-20th Century Post-War Irving Norman Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor

Striptease
By Irving Norman
Located in Palm Desert, CA
A drawing by Irving Norman. "Striptease" is a macabre cultural commentary drawing, pencil and color pencil on paper executed in a dark palette of blacks, grays, and reds by social su...
Category

Mid-20th Century American Modern Irving Norman Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Color Pencil, Pencil

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Early in the morning of May 21, three Panthers – Warren Kimbro, Lonnie McLucas, and George Sams, one of the Panthers who had come East from California to investigate the police infiltration of the New York Panther chapter, drove Rackley to the nearby town of Middlefield, Connecticut. Kimbro shot Rackley once in the head and McLucas shot him once in the chest. They dumped his corpse in a swamp, where it was discovered the next day. New Haven police immediately arrested eight New Haven area Black Panthers. Sams and two other Panthers from California were captured later. Sams and Kimbro confessed to the murder, and agreed to testify against McLucas in exchange for a reduction in sentence. Sams also implicated Seale in the killing, telling his interrogators that while visiting the Panther headquarters on the night of his speech, Seale had directly ordered him to murder Rackley. In all, nine defendants were indicted on charges related to the case. In the heated political rhetoric of the day, these defendants were referred to as the "New Haven Nine", a deliberate allusion to other cause-celebre defendants like the "Chicago Seven". The first trial was that of Lonnie McLucas, the only person who physically took part in the killing who refused to plead guilty. In fact, McLucas had confessed to shooting Rackley, but nonetheless chose to go to trial. Jury selection began in May 1970. The case and trial were already a national cause célèbre among critics of the Nixon administration, and especially among those hostile to the actions of the FBI. Under the Bureau's then-secret "Counter-Intelligence Program" (COINTELPRO), FBI director J. Edgar Hoover had ordered his agents to disrupt, discredit, or otherwise neutralize radical groups like the Panthers. Hostility between groups organizing political dissent and the Bureau was, by the time of the trials, at a fever pitch. Hostility from the left was also directed at the two Panthers cooperating with the prosecutors. Sams in particular was accused of being an informant, and lying to implicate Seale for personal benefit. In the days leading up to a rally on May Day 1970, thousands of supporters of the Panthers arrived in New Haven individually and in organized groups. They were housed and fed by community organizations and by sympathetic Yale students in their dormitory rooms. The Yale college dining halls provided basic meals for everyone. Protesters met daily en masse on the New Haven Green across the street from the Courthouse (and one hundred yards from Yale's main gate). On May Day there was a rally on the Green, featuring speakers including Jean Genet, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and John Froines (an assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Oregon). Teach-ins and other events were also held in the colleges themselves. Towards midnight on May 1, two bombs exploded in Yale's Ingalls Rink, where a concert was being held in conjunction with the protests.[4] Although the rink was damaged, no one was injured, and no culprit was identified.[4] Yale chaplain William Sloane Coffin stated, "All of us conspired to bring on this tragedy by law enforcement agencies by their illegal acts against the Panthers, and the rest of us by our immoral silence in front of these acts," while Yale President Kingman Brewster Jr. issued the statement, "I personally want to say that I'm appalled and ashamed that things should have come to such a pass that I am skeptical of the ability of a Black revolutionary to receive a fair trial anywhere in the U.S." Brewster's generally sympathetic tone enraged many of the university's older, more conservative alumni, heightening tensions within the school community. As tensions mounted, Yale officials sought to avoid deeper unrest and to deflect the real possibility of riots or violent student demonstrations. Sam Chauncey has been credited with winning tactical management on behalf of the administration to quell anxiety among law enforcement and New Haven's citizens, while Kurt Schmoke, a future Rhodes Scholar, mayor of Baltimore, MD and Dean of Howard University School of Law, has received kudos as undergraduate spokesman to the faculty during some of the protest's tensest moments. Ralph Dawson, a classmate of Schmoke's, figured prominently as moderator of the Black Student Alliance at Yale (BSAY). In the end, compromises between the administration and the students - and, primarily, urgent calls for nonviolence from Bobby Seale and the Black Panthers themselves - quashed the possibility of violence. While Yale (and many other colleges) went "on strike" from May Day until the end of the term, like most schools it was not actually "shut down". 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NEW SYNTHESIS
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"NEW SYNTHESIS" GRAPHITE AND COLORED PENICL ON PAPER SIGNED, DATED 1947 ILLUSTRATED IN THE BOOK ON THE ARTIST "DARK METROPOLIS" 39.5 X 29.5 INCHES Irving Norman 1906-1889 Born Irving Noachowitz in 1906 in Vilna, which at the time was under Russia's control, Irving Norman emigrated to the United States in 1923, settling first in New York's Lower East, where he trained as a barber, and then in Los Angeles, where he opened his own barber shop in 1934. In 1938, Norman joined the Abraham Lincoln battalion of the International Brigade...
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Irving Norman figurative drawings and watercolors for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Irving Norman figurative drawings and watercolors available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by Irving Norman in pencil, charcoal, color pencil and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 20th century and is mostly associated with the post-war style. Not every interior allows for large Irving Norman figurative drawings and watercolors, so small editions measuring 14 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of and Inji EFFLATOUN. Irving Norman figurative drawings and watercolors prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $2,400 and tops out at $105,000, while the average work can sell for $50,000.

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