Joseph Solman (January 25, 1909 – April 16, 2008) was an American painter, a founder of

The Ten The TEN is a track and field meeting held at the JSerra Catholic High School track in San Juan Capistrano, California, United States. Since 2023 it is a World Athletics Continental Tour Silver level meetingthe third-highest level of international ...

, a group of

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 ...

Expressionist Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...

painters in the 1930s. His best known works include his "Subway

Gouache Gouache (; ), body color, or opaque watercolor is a water-medium paint consisting of natural pigment, water, a binding agent (usually gum arabic or dextrin), and sometimes additional inert material. Gouache is designed to be opaque. Gouach ...

s" depicting travelers on the

New York City Subway The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system in New York City serving the New York City boroughs, boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. It is owned by the government of New York City and leased to the New York City Tr ...

Career

Born in

Vitebsk Vitebsk or Vitsyebsk (, ; , ; ) is a city in northern Belarus. It serves as the administrative center of Vitebsk Region and Vitebsk District, though it is administratively separated from the district. As of 2025, it has 358,927 inhabitants, m ...

, Russian Empire, he was brought to America from the Russian Empire as a child in 1912, Solman was a prodigious draftsman and knew, in his earliest teens, that he would be an artist. He went straight from high school to the

National Academy of Design The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Frederick Styles Agate, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, an ...

, though he says he learned more by sketching in the subway on the way back from school late at night: people "pose perfectly when they're asleep." In 1929, Solman saw the inaugural show at 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 ...

featuring

Seurat Georges Pierre Seurat ( , ; ; 2 December 1859 – 29 March 1891) was a French post-Impressionist artist. He devised the painting techniques known as chromoluminarism and pointillism and used conté crayon for drawings on paper with a rough ...

Gauguin Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (; ; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramist, and writer, whose work has been primarily associated with the Post-Impressionist and Symbolist movements. He was also an influ ...

Van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created approximately 2,100 artwork ...

, and Cézanne. In 1934, Solman had his first one-man show, much influenced by the French modern artist

Georges Rouault Georges-Henri Rouault (; 27 May 1871, Paris - 13 February 1958, Paris) was a French painter, draughtsman, and printmaker, whose work is often associated with Fauvism and Expressionism. Childhood and education Rouault was born into a poor famil ...

. One critic was impressed by "the mystery that lurks in deserted streets in the late twilight." Another noted that Solman's color had "an astonishingly rich quality that burns outward beneath the surface." Joseph Solman was, with

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 ...

, the unofficial co-leader of The Ten, a group of expressionist painters including

Louis Schanker Louis Schanker (1903 – May 7, 1981) was an American abstract artist. Early life He grew up in an Orthodox Jewish environment in the Bronx, New York. His parents, Sam, a tailor, and Fannie Schanker, were of Romanian descent. He had five sibl ...

Adolph Gottlieb Adolph Gottlieb (March 14, 1903 – March 4, 1974) was an American abstract expressionist painterChilvers, Ian & Claves-Smith, John eds., ''Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art'', Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. pp. 282-283 who also m ...

and

Ilya Bolotowsky Ilya Bolotowsky (July 1, 1907 – November 22, 1981) was an early 20th-century Russian-American painter in abstract styles in New York City. His work, a search for philosophical order through visual expression, embraced cubism and geometric ...

, who exhibited as the "Whitney Dissenters" at the Mercury Galleries in

in 1938. A champion of modernism, Solman was elected an editor of ''Art Front Magazine'' when its other editors, art historian

Meyer Schapiro Meyer Schapiro (23 September 1904 – 3 March 1996) was a Lithuanian-born American art historian who developed new art historical methodologies that incorporated an interdisciplinary approach to the study of works. An expert on early Christian, ...

and critic

Harold Rosenberg Harold Rosenberg (February 2, 1906 – July 11, 1978) was an American writer, educator, philosopher and art critic. He coined the term Action Painting in 1952 for what was later to be known as abstract expressionism. Rosenberg is best known for h ...

, were still partial to

Social Realism Social realism is work produced by painters, printmakers, photographers, writers, filmmakers and some musicians that aims to draw attention to the real socio-political conditions of the working class as a means to critique the power structures ...

. But Solman never believed in abstraction for abstraction's sake. "I have long discovered for myself," Solman has said, "that what we call the subject yields more pattern, more poetry, more drama, greater abstract design and tension than any shapes we may invent." In writing about a purchase of a typical 1930s Solman street scene for the Wichita Museum, director Howard Wooden put it this way: "Solman has produced the equivalent of an

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 ...

painting a full decade before the abstract expressionist movement came to dominate the American art scene, but without abandoning identifiable forms." In 1964, ''The Times'', discussing his well-known subway gouaches (done while commuting to his some-time job as a racetrack pari-mutuel clerk), called him a "Pari-Mutuel Picasso." In 1985, on the occasion of a 50-year retrospective, ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'' wrote: "It appears to have dawned, at last, on many collectors that this is art that has already stood the acid test of time." is Joseph Solman died in his sleep, at his long-time home in New York City, on April 16, 2008. He was the father of economist and television commentator Paul Solman and the retired elementary school teacher and community organizer, Ronni Solman.

References

External links

Notes from the Underground, Subway Portraits by Joseph Solman
Danforth Museum of Art 2007
Painter Joseph Solman: taking bets on real life
Chris Bergeron et al., ''Framingham Tab'', May 3, 2007. {{DEFAULTSORT:Solmon, Joseph 1909 births 2008 deaths 20th-century American painters American male painters 21st-century American painters 21st-century American male artists Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States Jewish American artists Jewish painters 20th-century American Jews 21st-century American Jews 20th-century American male artists