Carl Ashby (1914 — 2004) was an American

abstract expressionist Abstract expressionism in the United States emerged as a distinct art movement in the aftermath of World War II and gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s, a shift from the American social realism of the 1930s influenced by the Great Depressi ...

artist who lived and worked in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

Biography

Ashby was born in

Hurley Hurley may refer to: Places England * Hurley, Berkshire, a village and civil parish * Hurley, Warwickshire, a village * Hurley Common, Warwickshire * Hurley Lock, a weir and lock on the River Thames United States * Hurley, Alabama, an uninc ...

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

on March 2, 1914. He worked as an artist for the

Civilian Conservation Corps The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a voluntary government unemployment, work relief program that ran from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men ages 18–25 and eventually expanded to ages 17–28. The CCC was ...

before attending the

University of Utah The University of Utah (the U, U of U, or simply Utah) is a public university, public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. It was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret (Book of Mormon), Deseret by the General A ...

, where he graduated with a degree in Fine Arts in 1937. He relocated to New York City shortly thereafter, and married artist Estelle Grey in 1938. Grey had moved to New York City as a young woman to pursue a career in fashion design and she attend the

Traphagen School of Fashion Traphagen School of Fashion was an art and design school in operation from 1923 to 1991, and was located at 1680 Broadway in New York City. The school was founded and directed by Ethel Traphagen Leigh (1883–1963) with a focus on the foundation ...

. The couple met as students in the Art Student League of New York. Ashby earned a Master in Arts degree from

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 ...

in 1959. During his career, Ashby studied with artists

Hans Hofmann Hans Hofmann (March 21, 1880 – February 17, 1966) was a German-born American painter, renowned as both an artist and teacher. His career spanned two generations and two continents, and is considered to have both preceded and influenced Abstrac ...

George Grosz George Grosz (; ; born Georg Ehrenfried Groß; July 26, 1893 – July 6, 1959) was a German artist known especially for his caricatural drawings and paintings of Berlin life in the 1920s. He was a prominent member of the Berlin Dada and New Obj ...

, and

Morris Kantor Morris Kantor () (1896–1974) was a Russian-born American painter based in the New York City area. Life Born in Minsk on April 15, 1896, Kantor was brought to the United States in 1906 at age 10, in order to join his father who had previously ...

. He taught at the Parsons Division of the

New School The New School is a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for progressive thinkers ...

for 25 years, beginning in 1970. His works and papers are included in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Archives of American Art, the

Provincetown Art Association and Museum Provincetown () is a New England town located at the extreme tip of Cape Cod in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, in the United States. A small coastal resort town with a year-round population of 3,664 as of the 2020 United States census, Pro ...

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is a Modern art, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighbor ...

, and the

Hood Museum The Hood Museum of Art is an art museum owned and operated by Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. The first reference to the development of an art collection at Dartmouth was in 1772, making the collection among the oldest and largest, a ...

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College ( ) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, Dartmouth is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the America ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ashby, Carl 20th-century American painters American male painters 21st-century American painters 1914 births 2004 deaths Civilian Conservation Corps people University of Utah alumni New York University alumni Parsons School of Design faculty Art Students League of New York alumni 20th-century American male artists