Arnold Mesches
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Arnold Mesches (August 11, 1923 – November 5, 2016) was an American visual artist.


Bio

Arnold Mesches was born in 1923 in the Bronx, New York and was raised in
Buffalo, New York Buffalo is a Administrative divisions of New York (state), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York and county seat of Erie County, New York, Erie County. It lies in Western New York at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of ...
. Mesches moved to Los Angeles in 1943 on a scholarship at the Art Center School. In 1945, the
FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...
opened a file on him targeting him as a subversive
communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...
. He was inspired to create works during the Republican
Senator Joseph McCarthy Joseph Raymond McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death at age 48 in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the mos ...
era of the 1950s. He created many series of "provocative, layered
collage Collage (, from the , "to glue" or "to stick together") is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assembly of different forms, thus creating a new whole. (Compare with pasti ...
s composed from his personal FBI file plus news clippings, 1950s magazine cutouts, personal photographs, and hand written scripts." Mesches has explored contemporary social and historical issues, informed by world history and his life during the Depression, which also reflect his art. Mesches began teaching when his art career went into decline. Married with two children, he had affairs with numerous women. In 1970 he began an affair with
Jill Ciment Jill Ciment (born 1953) is a Canadian-American writer. Biography Ciment was born to a Russian Jewish family in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. When she was 10, she and her family immigrated to the United States, settling in Los Angeles, California. Sh ...
, his seventeen-year-old student, and thirty years his junior. The two moved in together the following year, married after his divorce finalized, and remained so until his death at age 93. Ciment went to become an accomplished novelist and memoirist. In 1984, he moved to New York City and taught at
New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...
. He also taught at
Parsons College Parsons College was a private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college located in Fairfield, Iowa. The school was named for its wealthy benefactor, Lewis B. Parsons Sr., and was founded in 1875 with one ...
and
Rutgers University Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's C ...
. He eventually ended up teaching at
University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida, United States. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida and a preem ...
in Gainesville. He has had over 125 solo exhibitions and is represented in places such as the
Metropolitan Museum of Arts The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the third-largest museum in the world and the largest art museum in the Americas. With 5.36 million v ...
, the
Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum). LACMA was founded in 1961 ...
, the
Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 500,000 objects. Located near the Prospect Heig ...
, and the Museum of Modern Art in Sydney, Australia, among others. He died on November 5, 2016, in
Gainesville, Florida Gainesville is the county seat of Alachua County, Florida, United States, and the most populous city in North Central Florida, with a population of 145,212 in 2022. It is the principal city of the Gainesville metropolitan area, Florida, Gainesv ...
, at the age of 93.


Awards

*National Endowment of the Arts, 1982 *Pollock-Krasner award, 2002 and 2008 *Art Critics of America, 2004 *Florida State Individual Grant 2007


References


External links


Official Website
*Arnold Mesches and
Jill Ciment Jill Ciment (born 1953) is a Canadian-American writer. Biography Ciment was born to a Russian Jewish family in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. When she was 10, she and her family immigrated to the United States, settling in Los Angeles, California. Sh ...
in conversation with th
''Brooklyn Rail''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mesches, Arnold 1923 births 2016 deaths 20th-century American painters American male painters 21st-century American painters 21st-century American male artists New York University faculty Rutgers University faculty University of Florida faculty 20th-century American male artists Artists from the Bronx