Michael Goldberg
American, 1924 - 2007
(not assigned)New York, New York, USA
SchoolAbstact Expressionism
BiographyBorn December 24, 1924, in New York City, Michael Goldberg continued to live and work in Manhattan. He began his artistic training at the Art Students League in New York (1938) and attended Hans Hofmann's School of Fine Art (1941-1942) before interrupting his studies to serve as a paratrooper in the United States Army in North Africa, China, Burma, and India. After World War II, he resumed his classes with Hofmann. He became involved in the avant-garde New York art scene, meeting Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, and Milton Resnick among others. In 1951, Goldberg, under the name Michael Stuart, showed his paintings in the "Ninth Street Show," arguably the first comprehensive display of Abstract Expressionist work. The following year he moved to 28 East 2nd Street and joined the artists' "Club" on Eighth Street, gathering with other Abstract Expressionist painters to exchange artistic ideas.Around this time, he met the poet Frank O'Hara, who became a life-long friend and dedicated many poems to Goldberg. In addition, they collaborated on a project titled "Odes" in 1960. Goldberg maintained his connection with the Abstract Expressionist painters throughout the fifties and into the sixties. By 1953, he was a regular at Cedar Bar, known as a meeting place for avant-garde artists. Two years later, he moved into a studio next to that of De Kooning and Resnick. In 1962, he acquired Mark Rothko's studio at 222 Bowery where he worked until his death.
Teaching has played a central role in Goldberg's career. He has held visiting artist positions at the University of California, Berkeley (1961) and the University of Minnesota (1967) and has taught at the School of Visual Arts in New York City since 1979. Beginning in 1980, accompanied by his wife, the artist Lynn Umlauf, he has spent long summers in Italy. Many of his later pictures are inspired by Italy's celebrated artistic heritage.
Goldberg's work defies classification, having undergone numerous changes throughout his long and prolific career. He has painted dynamic, gestural canvases; monochromatic, minimalist works; grids; calligraphic images; patterned or striped paintings, and he has experimented with collage. By 2003, he had had 99 solo exhibitions since his first show at Tibor de Nagy in New York in 1953. His pictures are in numerous public collections in the United States, including the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Hirshorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
Michael Goldberg, a second generation Abstract Expressionist painter known for his action-packed, gesteral canvases, went through several phases that included monochromatic works of red and then black, bands of white on black, caligraphic images and bright bands of color hinting of architectural forms. Ever aligned with Abstract Expressionism which he described in 2001 as "still the primary visual challenge of our time", he later shrugged off the designation saying "labels come and go". (Glueck)
He was also an art educator who taught at the University of California, Berkeley from 1961 to 1962; Yale University in 1967; and the University of Minnesota in 1968. He and his artist wife, Lynn Umlauf, both taught at the School of Visual Arts in New York city.
Goldberg was born in 1924 in the Bronx of New York City. His studies at the Art Students League, 1938-1942, were interrupted by World War II where he served as a paratrooper in North Africa and Burma, making eighty jumps behind Japanese lines.
Returning to New York, he studied with Jose de Creeft and Hans Hofmann, and Hoffman remained a strong influence. He was also influenced by Roberto Matta and Arshile Gorky, but it was Willem de Kooning, and his use of fiery brush-work and explosive color, who would prove to be Goldberg's greatest influence. Beginning 1980, he spent five months of each year in Tuscany, Italy on an estate near Siena. In his studio there, he created many of his signature paintings done with oil sticks pressed directly onto canvas. He described these as quasi grids, "patchy squares of color intersected at random by strong diagonals." (Glueck)
Goldberg died on December 30, 2007 while working in his studio in the Bowery in New York City. His studio was one he took over from Mark Rothko in the 1950s.
Michael Goldberg's work is in the collections of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York; Baltimore Museum of Art; Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia; De Cordova and Dana Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts; and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.
Person TypeIndividual
Terms
- male
American, born Finland, born 1945
German, c. 1482 - 1539/40
