Biografie von Emil James BISTTRAM (1895-1976)

Birth place: Hungary

Death place: Taos, NM

Addresses: NYC (immigrated 1906); Taos, NM

Profession: Painter, designer, lecturer, teacher

Studied: In NYC, 1920-25 at: NAD; Cooper Union; NY School Fine & Applied Art; Howard Giles, Ivan Olinsky, Leon Kroll, Jay Hambidge (his most influential teacher); Guggenheim Fellowship, 1931 (fresco painting in Mexico with Diego Rivera)

Exhibited: Philadelphia WCC, 1926 (prize),1931 (medal); PAFA, 1926-28, 1933, 1941, 1954; AWCS, 1927 (prize), 1930 (prize); 1931 (prize); AIC; Corcoran Gal, 1932, 1935; WMAA, 1951; Martin Diamond FA, 1984

Member: NYWCC; AWCS; Philadelphia WCC; Fnd. Western Artists; Taos AA, 1952 (co-founder); Transcendental Painting Group, 1938-41

Work: Albright Art Gal.; Roerich Mus., NY; Taos County Court House; murals, Dept. Justice, Washington, DC; USPO, Ranger, Texas

Comments: Best known as an abstract painter, his style ranged from the classic regionalism of the 1930s (WPA murals) to abstractions based on the dynamic symmetry theories he learned from Jay Hambidge, tempered by Roerich"s Russian mysticism. Bisttram founded his own school in Taos, NM, in 1931, and in 1938 co-founded with Raymond Jonson the Transcendental Painting Group. He also started the Heptagon Gallery in Taos. Position: Master Inst., Roerich Mus., 1925-30; NY School F&AA; dir., Bisttram Sch. FA, Taos, NM, 1931-on.

Sources: WW59; WW47; P & H Samuels, 47-48; Eldredge, et al., Art in New Mexico, 1900-1945, 192; Diamond, Thirty-Five American Modernists; American Abstract Art, 177; Falk, Exhibition Series.

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