Dora Deborah Kaminsky (1909–1977) was an American artist.

Early life and education

Dora Deborah Kaminsky was born in New York City in 1909. As a child, she attended

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, followed by the

Art Students League of New York The Art Students League of New York is an art school in the American Fine Arts Society in Manhattan, New York City. The Arts Students League is known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists. Although artists may study f ...

. She proceeded to study in Europe in the 1930s, including in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

, Paris,

Stuttgart Stuttgart (; ; Swabian German, Swabian: ; Alemannic German, Alemannic: ; Italian language, Italian: ; ) is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, largest city of the States of Germany, German state of ...

, and

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

. She made money as an artists' model.

Mid-life

Kaminsky worked at 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 ...

for three years as part of the teaching staff. In 1943 she was one of the charter members who organized the

National Serigraph Society The National Serigraph Society was founded in 1940 by a group of artists involved in the WPA Federal Art Project, including Anthony Velonis, Max Arthur Cohn, and Hyman Warsager. The creation of the society coincided with the rise of serigraphs ...

and remained a member for 13 years. Kaminsky first visited

Taos, New Mexico Taos () is a town in Taos County, New Mexico, Taos County, in the north-central region of New Mexico in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Initially founded in 1615, it was intermittently occupied until its formal establishment in 1795 by Santa Fe ...

in 1944, spending every other summer before settling there in 1954. She also had a home in

Delphi, Greece Delphi (; ), in legend previously called Pytho (Πυθώ), was an ancient sacred precinct and the seat of Pythia, the major oracle who was consulted about important decisions throughout the ancient classical world. The ancient Greeks consid ...

. She worked in Hawaii for a brief period. Kaminsky was included in the 1947 and 1951

Dallas Museum of Fine Arts The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) is an art museum located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas, along Woodall Rodgers Freeway between St. Paul and Harwood. In the 1970s, the museum moved from its previous location in Fair Park to the Art ...

exhibitions of the National Serigraph Society. In 1958 Kaminsky married fellow Taos artist Leon Gaspard. After he died in 1964 she served as curator of retrospective exhibitions of his work held at the West Texas Museum and

New Mexico Museum of Art The New Mexico Museum of Art is an art museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Santa Fe governed by the state of New Mexico, United States. It is one of four state-run museums in Santa Fe that are part of the Museum of New Mexico. It is located one bloc ...

. From 1972 to 1973 she visited Africa and India. She worked in

serigraph Screen printing is a printing technique where a mesh is used to transfer ink (or dye) onto a substrate, except in areas made impermeable to the ink by a blocking stencil. A blade or squeegee is moved across the screen in a "flood stroke" ...

printing, pastel drawing, and painting. Her serigraphs have appeared in such collections as the Memphis Academy of Arts, Baltimore Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum.

Later life and legacy

Her awards include the National Treasury Competition Purchase Award in 1940, the Metropolitan Museum Purchase Prize in 1941 and the top purchase award in serigraph from the Santa Fe Art Museum. She received a Wurlitzer Foundation grant for the years 1956 and 1957. She died in 1977.

Notable collections

*''The Abandoned Sluice'',

watercolor Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (Commonwealth English; see American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin 'water'), is a painting metho ...

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM; formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds one of the world's lar ...

, Washington, D.C.

References

External links

Oral history interview with Dora Kaminsky, 1965
at the

Archives of American Art The Archives of American Art is the largest collection of primary resources documenting the history of the visual arts in the United States. More than 20 million items of original material are housed in the Archives' research centers in Washing ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kaminsky, Dora 1909 births 1977 deaths Art Students League of New York alumni American artists' models Artists from Taos, New Mexico American printers Women printers 20th-century American painters People from Delphi 20th-century American women painters