Image Not Available
for Henry Botkin
Henry Botkin
American, 1895 - 1983
In 1935, he visited Charleston, South Carolina where he painted 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 was hosted by his cousin and close companion, George Gershwin, composer, who was in Charleston with DuBose Heyward at Folly Beach setting his novel "Porgy" to music. Botkin was Gershwin's painting teacher, and Gershwin collected many of Botkin's paintings which people said corresponded in mood to Gershwin's music. Martha Severens in her book, The Charleston Renaissance, wrote: "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 and the evolution of "Porgy and Bess". . . .They talked art together and spent years of their lives together". (112)
Botkin also acted as an art advisor to Ira and George Gershwin, traveling to Paris to buy works for them and for their friends including William Paley, Fanny Brice, and Billy Rose.
Botkin helped to organize the first exhibition of American abstract painting at the Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan, in 1955.
Person TypeIndividual
English, c. 1710 - 1775, active in America, c. 1736-1769
