Mashel Teitelbaum (1921–1985) (variant name Mashel Alexander Teitelbaum) was a Canadian painter, born in

Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Saskatoon () is the largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It straddles a bend in the South Saskatchewan River in the central region of the province. It is located along the Trans-Canada Hig ...

in 1921. He was the father of museum director Matthew Teitelbaum.

Career

Teitelbaum studied from 1950 to 1951 at the

California School of Fine Arts San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximately ...

with

Clyfford Still Clyfford Still (November 30, 1904 – June 23, 1980) was an American Painting, painter, and one of the leading figures in the first generation of Abstract Expressionists, who developed a new, powerful approach to painting in the years immediat ...

and at

Mills College Mills College at Northeastern University in Oakland, California is part of Northeastern University's global university system. Mills College was founded as the Young Ladies Seminary in 1852 in Benicia, California; it was relocated to Oakland in ...

with

Max Beckmann Max Carl Friedrich Beckmann (February 12, 1884 – December 27, 1950) was a German painter, drawing, draftsman, printmaker, sculpture, sculptor, and writer. Although he is classified as an Expressionist artist, he rejected both the term and the m ...

. After living in

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

for a time, Teitelbaum moved to

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

. In Toronto, worked as a set designer for

CBC Television CBC Television (also known as CBC TV, or simply CBC) is a Television in Canada, Canadian English-language terrestrial television, broadcast television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcasting, p ...

and served as art critic for the ''

Toronto Telegram ''The Toronto Evening Telegram'' was a conservative, broadsheet afternoon newspaper published in Toronto from 1876 to 1971. It had a reputation for supporting the Conservative Party at the federal and the provincial levels. The paper competed wit ...

'' for over a decade. He then studied art in Europe, and taught at the School of Fine Arts at the

University of Manitoba The University of Manitoba (U of M, UManitoba, or UM) is a public research university in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Founded in 1877, it is the first university of Western Canada. Both by total student enrolment and campus area, the University of ...

before returning to Toronto, founding the New School of Art at New School, Toronto in 1962.

Art work

At first, Teitelbaum painted his own form of portraits featuring

expressionism 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 ...

, then landscapes of various regions in Canada. His style became increasingly abstract throughout his years of painting, going through many changes, among them single

Zen Zen (; from Chinese: ''Chán''; in Korean: ''Sŏn'', and Vietnamese: ''Thiền'') is a Mahayana Buddhist tradition that developed in China during the Tang dynasty by blending Indian Mahayana Buddhism, particularly Yogacara and Madhyamaka phil ...

-like improvised gestures on unprimed canvas. By 1967, he critiqued modern art, then in 1973, he made paint skin constructions, of

acrylic paint Acrylic paint is a fast-drying paint made of pigment suspended in acrylic polymer emulsion and plasticizers, silicone oils, defoamers, stabilizers, or metal soaps. Most acrylic paints are water-based, but become water-resistant when dry. Dep ...

peeled away when dry from

polyethylene Polyethylene or polythene (abbreviated PE; IUPAC name polyethene or poly(methylene)) is the most commonly produced plastic. It is a polymer, primarily used for packaging (plastic bags, plastic films, geomembranes and containers including bott ...

sheets to make

collages 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 ...

. He then turned to painting exuberant landscapes. That he turned from abstraction to representation in some ways resembled that of other artists of his generation such as Duncan de Kergommeaux who also turned away from abstraction to depicy landscape.

Personal life

With his wife Ethel an administrator and later a government official Teitelbaum had three children. Teitelbaum was popular in the Toronto art community, and the Teitelbaum household was often visited by artists, politicians, and other Canadian media figures. In his final years, Teitelbaum repeatedly picketed the

Art Gallery of Ontario The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO; ) is an art museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Located on Dundas Street, Dundas Street West in the Grange Park (neighbourhood), Grange Park neighbourhood of downtown Toronto, the museum complex takes up of phys ...

for its failure to support contemporary Canadian artists. Teitelbaum's only son,

Matthew Matthew may refer to: * Matthew (given name) * Matthew (surname) * ''Matthew'' (album), a 2000 album by rapper Kool Keith * Matthew (elm cultivar), a cultivar of the Chinese Elm ''Ulmus parvifolia'' Christianity * Matthew the Apostle, one of ...

, would become the museum's chief

curator A curator (from , meaning 'to take care') is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the particular ins ...

in 1993 and director in 1998. Mashel Teitelbaum was described as a "brilliant but mercurial" artist, afflicted by

bipolar disorder Bipolar disorder (BD), previously known as manic depression, is a mental disorder characterized by periods of Depression (mood), depression and periods of abnormally elevated Mood (psychology), mood that each last from days to weeks, and in ...

by the ''

Toronto Star The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and part of Torstar's Daily News Brands (Torstar), Daily News Brands division. ...

'' in 2009.

Selected exhibitions

* 2004:

MacLaren Art Centre The MacLaren Art Centre is an art gallery and museum, located in Barrie, Ontario, Canada. It is named in honour of Maurice MacLaren, who bequeathed his Victorian home, Maple Hill, to the Barrie Gallery Project in 1989. The MacLaren Art Centre l ...

, Barrie, Ontario: ''Abstract Innovations: Mashel Teitelbaum'' * 1991:

Mendel Art Gallery The Mendel Art Gallery was a major creative cultural centre in City Park, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Operating from 1964 to 2015, it housed a permanent collection of more than 7,500 works of art. The gallery was managed by the city-owned Saskatoon ...

, Saskatoon, ''From Regionalism to Abstraction: Mashel Teitelbaum and Saskatchewan Art in the 1940s'' * 1946: Saskatoon Art Centre, Saskatoon (with William Perehudoff)

Selected collections

, Toronto *

Art Gallery of Peterborough The Art Gallery of Peterborough is a free admission, non-profit public art gallery in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. A registered charity that depends on the support of its members, it was founded in 1974 by an independent board of volunteers. I ...

* Leonard and Bina Ellen Art Gallery,

Concordia University Concordia University () is a Public university, public English-language research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1974 following the merger of Loyola College (Montreal), Loyola College and Sir George Williams Universit ...

, Montreal *

National Gallery of Canada The National Gallery of Canada (), located in the capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, is Canada's National museums of Canada, national art museum. The museum's building takes up , with of space used for exhibiting art. It is one of the List of large ...

, Ottawa *

MacKenzie Art Gallery The MacKenzie Art Gallery (MAG; ) is an art museum located in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. The museum occupies the multipurpose T. C. Douglas Building, situated at the edge of the Wascana Centre. The building holds eight galleries totaling to of ...

, Regina *

, Saskatoon *

Robert McLaughlin Gallery The Robert McLaughlin Gallery is a public art gallery in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. It is the largest public art gallery in the Regional Municipality of Durham, of which Oshawa is a part. The gallery houses a significant collection of Canadian conte ...

, Oshawa *

Vancouver Art Gallery The Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG) is an art museum in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The museum occupies a adjacent to Robson Square in downtown Vancouver, making it the largest art museum in Western Canada by building size. Designed by Fr ...

References

External links

National Gallery of Canada
(Mashel Teitelbaum) {{DEFAULTSORT:Teitelbaum, Mashel 1921 births 1985 deaths 20th-century Canadian painters Canadian male painters Jewish Canadian artists Jewish painters Artists from Saskatoon Canadian abstract artists 20th-century Canadian male artists Canadian collage artists 20th-century Canadian Jews Canadian landscape painters People with bipolar disorder