John D. Graham
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John D. Graham (, Kyiv, Ukraine – June 27, 1961, London, England) was a Ukrainian–born American
modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...
and figurative painter, art collector, and a mentor of modernist artists in New York City. Born Ivan Gratianovitch Dombrowsky in
Kyiv Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...
, he immigrated to New York in 1920. He studied painting for the first time in his 30s, becoming deeply interested in modernism. In addition to gaining attention for his own work, he championed the new movement as a collector and curator. He was a mentor to a younger generation of American artists, who developed the style of Abstract Expressionism in the New York area. In the 1940s and 1950s, Graham developed a new figurative style derived from classical masters, which he first showed in paintings and drawings of Russian soldiers. He died in
London, England London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
.


Early life and career

Dombrovsky was born into an aristocratic family of
Szlachta The ''szlachta'' (; ; ) were the nobility, noble estate of the realm in the Kingdom of Poland, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Depending on the definition, they were either a warrior "caste" or a social ...
descent to parents Gratian-Ignatius Dombrovsky and Youzefa Dombrovsky (née Brezinska). He received a classical education and graduated from the St. Vladimir University ( University of Kyiv) in 1913 with a degree in law. At some point during or shortly after his studies he married his first wife, Ebrenia (a.k.a. Catherine) Ignatevnia Makavelia, and had two children, Cyril and Maria. He went on to serve as a cavalry officer under Czar Nicholas II during World War I in the Circassian Regiment of the Russian Imperial Army. For his efforts in the war, he earned the
Saint George's Cross In heraldry, Saint George's Cross (or the Cross of Saint George) is a red cross on a white background, which from the Late Middle Ages became associated with Saint George, the military saint, often depicted as a crusader. Associated with ...
. After the execution of Czar Nicholas II and his family in 1918 by the
Bolshevik The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...
s during the Russian Revolution, Dombrovsky was briefly imprisoned due to his noble class. He fled for a time to his mother's native
Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...
, which gained independence from the Russian Empire for a time after WWI. There he lived in
Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...
. He returned to fight in the
Crimea Crimea ( ) is a peninsula in Eastern Europe, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, almost entirely surrounded by the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov. The Isthmus of Perekop connects the peninsula to Kherson Oblast in mainland Ukrain ...
with "the Whites", counter-revolutionaries, but decided to leave when the resistance collapsed.


Immigration to the United States

In 1920, Dombrovsky immigrated to the United States with his second wife, Vera Aleksandrovna, and their son Nicholas. They settled in New York City. He began calling himself John (Ivan in English) in the United States, and had his name officially changed to John D. Graham upon becoming a United States citizen in 1927.


Artistic career

Still under the name Dombrovsky (also spelled Dabrowsky), John began to study painting for the first time at 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 ...
. There he also briefly assisted painter John F. Sloan, known as one of the Ashcan School. Dombrovsky soon attracted attention for his art. In 1925 he relocated to
Baltimore Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the 30th-most populous U.S. city. The Baltimore metropolitan area is the 20th-large ...
with his third wife, artist Elinor Gibson, whom he met at the Art Students League. They had a son David Graham. The son later married Patricia Thompson, and died in Windermere, Florida. David Graham had gone to Europe to retrieve the remainder of his father's work upon the latter’s death. Patricia Thompson Graham later gave numerous works by his father to the
Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...
in New York. Other of Graham's relatively small collection of remaining works are in her sisters Kathryn and Jean's portfolios. While in Baltimore, Graham joined a group called The Modernists. He served as their secretary and exhibited in their gallery. In this period, in addition to painting, Graham established himself as an art connoisseur and collector. He most notably established a collection of African art for Vanity Fair editor
Frank Crowninshield Francis Welch Crowninshield (June 24, 1872 – December 28, 1947) was an American journalist and art and theater critic best known for developing and editing the magazine ''Vanity Fair (American magazine 1913-1936), Vanity Fair'' for 21 years, m ...
. Graham himself also collected traditional African art, and eventually developed part of his studio at 57 Greenwich Avenue into what he called the Primitive Arts Gallery. He was greatly interested in developing knowledge of advances and changes in the art world, and kept in touch with what was taking place in Europe as well as the US. Beginning in the 1930s, Graham became associated with the New York School as an artist and impresario. In that decade, he was painting in the abstract, post-cubist style of
Pablo Picasso Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...
, who exerted wide leadership from Paris. Graham was a close friend with artists Wilhelmina Weber Furlong and her husband Thomas Furlong of the Art Students League.{{rp, {{cite web, url=http://weberfurlong.com/weber-publications/publishing, publisher=The Weber Furlong Press, New York, title=John Graham & Weber Furlong The Biography & Catalogue, August 7, 2012 , work=Wilhelmina Weber Furlong Documentary Film & Biography Graham and Elinor Gibson were divorced in 1934, and she kept custody of their son David. That year Graham met American Constance Wellman in Paris; they married in New York City in 1936 and lived in
Brooklyn Heights Brooklyn Heights is a residential neighborhood within the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Old Fulton Street near the Brooklyn Bridge on the north, Cadman Plaza West on the east, Atlantic Avenue on the south ...
. They were near other artists Adolph Gottlieb, David Smith, and Dorothy Dehner. Wellman was instrumental in editing Graham's book ''System and Dialectics of Art'', which he published in 1937. Graham and Wellman worked for Hilla Rebay in 1938, helping her execute the first exhibition of the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, which later developed to become the
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue between 88th and 89th Street (Manhattan), 89th Streets on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It hosts a permanent coll ...
. Along with many others, Graham and his wife struggled financially during the
Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...
. They moved to Mexico for its lower cost of living, and continued to live there on and off. Wellman and Graham separated in August 1942, dividing their assets equally. Wellman initiated subsequent divorce proceedings, on the grounds of "extreme cruelty, mental in nature" committed by Graham. The divorce was finalized in the state of Nevada on July 16, 1945. During the 1940s Graham married for the fifth time, to Marianne Schapira Strate. She had a grown daughter, Ileana Sonnabend, who was then married to Leo Castelli. They both became influential in the New York art world and were known as independent gallery owners and dealers. Graham served as a mentor to younger artists such as
Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter. A major figure in the abstract expressionist movement, Pollock was widely noticed for his "Drip painting, drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household ...
,
Willem de Kooning Willem de Kooning ( , ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. Born in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, he moved to the United States in 1926, becoming a US citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married pa ...
, and Arshile Gorky. He introduced Ileana and Leo Castelli to his artist friends in the New York art world. He was also considered influential to Lee Krasner (Pollock's wife and an artist in her own right), David Smith, Dorothy Dehner, and
Mark Rothko Mark Rothko ( ; Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz until 1940; September 25, 1903February 25, 1970) was an American abstract art, abstract painter. He is best known for his color field paintings that depicted irregular and painterly rectangular reg ...
. Graham claimed to have befriended Picasso and many other important European
modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...
s while living in
Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
and in
Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
. He often entertained and lectured the younger American artists in New York City about modernist ideas. He was frequently the bearer of radical new insights into art and creativity. In 1942 Graham curated a group show at the McMillen Gallery that exhibited work by Jackson Pollock (in his first exhibition in New York City), Lee Krasner, Willem de Kooning, and Stuart Davis. He showed them with work by well-established European artists:
Pablo Picasso Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...
,
Henri Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual arts, visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, ...
,
Georges Braque Georges Braque ( ; ; 13 May 1882 – 31 August 1963) was a major 20th-century List of French artists, French painter, Collage, collagist, Drawing, draughtsman, printmaker and sculptor. His most notable contributions were in his alliance with ...
,
Pierre Bonnard Pierre Bonnard (; 3 October 186723 January 1947) was a French painter, illustrator and printmaker, known especially for the stylized decorative qualities of his paintings and his bold use of color. A founding member of the Post-Impressionist gr ...
, and
Amedeo Modigliani Amedeo Clemente Modigliani (; ; 12 July 1884 – 24 January 1920) was an Italian painter and sculptor of the École de Paris who worked mainly in France. He is known for portraits and nudes in a modern art, modern style characterized by a surre ...
. Along with Stuart Davis and Hans Hofmann, Graham is considered a mentor for the younger American artists above, who comprised many of the
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 ...
generation of American painters and sculptors. He was the author of ''System and Dialectics of Art'' (1937), a treatise on art, modernism and the
avant-garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...
.
''New York Times'' review by Grace Glueck, November 11, 1984, accessed online July 12, 2007
It was an enormously influential text during the 1940s and supported the modernist movement. During this period and into the 1950s, Graham also continued to paint, developing a "unique figurative style" derived from classical forms; he was especially influenced by the works of
Raphael Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), now generally known in English as Raphael ( , ), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. List of paintings by Raphael, His work is admired for its cl ...
,
Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 1452 - 2 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially rested o ...
,
Nicolas Poussin Nicolas Poussin (, , ; June 1594 – 19 November 1665) was a French painter who was a leading painter of the classical French Baroque style, although he spent most of his working life in Rome. Most of his works were on religious and mythologic ...
, and
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres ( ; ; 29 August 1780 – 14 January 1867) was a French Neoclassicism, Neoclassical Painting, painter. Ingres was profoundly influenced by past artistic traditions and aspired to become the guardian of academic ...
.{{cite web, url=https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_3502_300327001.pdf, title=John D. Graham/Paintings and Drawings/An Exhibit Circulated by the Museum of Modern Art, year=1968, publisher=Museum of Modern Art He signed these paintings with "Ioannus", the Latin form of John and Ivan. Among his first works in this style were paintings and drawings of Russian soldiers completed about 1943, drawn from his own experience in the imperial army during World War I.


Death and legacy

Graham died of generalized reticulum cell
sarcoma A sarcoma is a rare type of cancer that arises from cells of mesenchymal origin. Originating from mesenchymal cells means that sarcomas are cancers of connective tissues such as bone, cartilage, muscle, fat, or vascular tissues. Sarcom ...
in
London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
on June 27, 1961.{{Cite web, title=John D. Graham papers, 1799-1988, bulk 1890-1961: Box 1, Folder 13, State Department Report of Death, 1961, url=https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/john-d-graham-papers-7215/series-1/box-1-folder-13, access-date=2024-07-21, date=1961-07-06, author=Henry J. Lilienfield, website=Archives of American Art, publisher=Smithsonian Institution, language=en Enclosure in letter from Donald W. Smith to David Graham dated 21 July 1961 After his death, Graham's art of his last two decades was the subject of increasing scholarly and market interest. In 1968, MOMA circulated a traveling exhibition of his works from this period, ''John D. Graham/Paintings and Drawings''.


Notes

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References

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External links


John D. Graham Biography: Hollis Taggart Galleries

The John D. Graham Papers at the Archives of American Art


{{Authority control {{DEFAULTSORT:Graham, John D. 1886 births 1961 deaths 20th-century American painters American male painters American modern painters Art Students League of New York alumni Wells College faculty Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States 20th-century American male artists