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Jolán Gross-Bettelheim

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Jolán Gross-Bettelheim (1900–1972) was a Hungarian artist who lived and worked in the United States from 1925 to 1956, before returning to Hungary.

Early life and education

Gross-Bettelheim was born in Hungary, but lived in the United States from 1925-1956.[1] She studied painting at the Budapest School of Fine Art in 1919, followed by studies at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna and the Akademie der Bildenden Künst in Berlin.[1] Gross-Bettelheim then studied in Paris at the Académie de Grande Chaumière between 1922-24.[1] She married a Hungarian-born radiologist,[2] Frigyes Bettelheim, and settled in Cleveland by 1925.[1] Her studies in Ohio commenced at the Cleveland School of Art with modernist painter Henry Keller.[3] She and her husband relocated to New York City in 1938.[1] As a communist, Gross-Bettelheim was a member of the John Reed Club, as well as the American Artists’ Congress.[1][4] She contributed to leftist publications such as New Masses and the Daily Worker.[1]

Cleveland and the WPA

Gross-Bettelheim worked in Cleveland at a time when printmaking was flourishing.[5] It was a time when lithography was seen as a viable art form, rather than being limited to commercial use.[5] Interest in printmaking was bolstered by art organizations that were founded in the 1920s.[5] And the Cleveland Print Makers (CPM) was formed in 1930 by artist and teacher Kálmán Kubinyi.[6] It engaged in numerous activities to expand exposure for Cleveland printmakers, with the goal of increasing the sales of their works.[6] Its most ambitious activity was the Print Mart or Market during which artists opened a gallery to sell works to the general public.[6] The Print Market featured America Today in November 1936, an exhibition that was held in thirty U.S. cities simultaneously.[7] The show included 100 prints created by artists from the American Artists’ Congress, including Gross-Bettelheim.[7] Gross-Bettelheim also was commissioned to create a print for the CPM’s Print-a-Month series, a subscription for one print per month by Cleveland and some nonresident artists.[8]

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) Federal Art Project (FAP) had a graphic arts division of which printmaking was a part. A graphic arts workshop was set up in Cleveland as a part of the WPA, operating officially as Graphic Arts Project No. 8048 from December 1935 to 1943, being most productive in 1936-37.[9] Gross-Bettelheim produced prints for the WPA graphics workshop, as well.[10] The American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) sponsored a traveling exhibition, Fifty Prints of the Year, which included work by Gross-Bettelheim.[11]

Later life

She returned to Hungary after 1956, and died in Budapest in 1972.[1]

Themes

Gross-Bettelheim’s prints explore the darkness of the Depression, employing a cubist style that heightens the drama of cityscapes and the industrial landscape.[11][12] Sabine Kretzschmar describes Gross-Bettelheim as “the purest modernist” amongst Cleveland printmakers, reflecting the influence of German expressionism, constructivism, and cubism.[13]

Her work explored social and political issues.[14] The plight of unemployment is addressed in her print In the Employment Office (ca. 1936, lithograph) and racism in Workers Meeting (Scottsboro Boys) (ca. 1935, drypoint).[15]

The stark black and white images convey a sense of humanity being oppressed by the scale of industry. For example, Gross-Bettelheim’s ca. 1940 lithograph Assembly Line portrays a claustrophobic space filled with workers and a haunting image of lines of gas masks on a factory assembly line. Her 1936 lithograph Civilization at the Crossroads (Fascism II) depicts the rising threat of Fascism in Europe.

Collections

Exhibitions

  • May Shows at the Cleveland Museum of Art 1927-1937 (annual exhibition) [except for 1933][1][21]
  • Kokoon Club, 1932, first solo exhibition[1]
  • American Today, 1936
  • American Artists’ Conference Exhibition, 1938[22]
  • Artists for Victory, 1942, at Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York[23]
  • Artists for Victory, 1943 [show held in 36 museums simultaneously][24]
  • America in the War, 1943
  • Library of Congress annual print shows, Washington, DC 1943-1950[22]
  • Annual Exhibition of Northwest Printmakers, Seattle Art Museum, 1944-1953[22]
  • Durand-Ruel Galleries in Manhattan, 1945
  • Art Institute of Chicago, 2 watercolor shows[3]
  • Modernist Abstraction in American Prints, Laguna Art Museum, 1992
  • Jolán Gross-Bettelheim: The American Prints, Print and Drawing Study Room of the Faulconer Gallery, Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa April 27-May 21, 2001
  • Jolán Gross-Bettelheim: An American Printmaker in an Age of Progress” Eisenberg Gallery in the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum in New Brunswick., NJ Mar 19, 2011 - Jul 31, 2011

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Cleveland Museum of Art (1996). Transformations in Cleveland Art, 1796-1946: Community and Diversity in Early Modern America. Cleveland, OH: Distributed by Ohio University Press. p. 230.
  2. ^ Williams, Dave; Williams, Reba (September 1990). "Jolan Gross-Bettelheim: A Hidden Life". Print Quarterly. 7: Williams & Williams refer to him as a psychiatrist in their article, 307.
  3. ^ a b Stamey, Emily (2001). Jolán Gross-Bettelheim: the American Prints. Grinnell, IA: Faulconer Gallery. p. 3.
  4. ^ Kretzschmar, Sabine (1996). "Art for Everyone: Cleveland Print Makers and the WPA". Transformations in Cleveland Art, 1796-1946: Community and Diversity in Early Modern America. Cleveland, OH: Distributed by Ohio University Press. pp. 188, 189.
  5. ^ a b c Kretzschmar, Sabine (1996). "Art for Everyone: Cleveland Print Makers and the WPA". Transformations in Cleveland Art, 1796-1946: Community and Diversity in Early Modern America. Cleveland, OH: Distributed by Ohio University Press. p. 177.
  6. ^ a b c Kretzschmar, Sabine (1996). "Art for Everyone: Cleveland Print Makers and the WPA". Transformations in Cleveland Art, 1796-1946: Community and Diversity in Early Modern America. Cleveland, OH: Distributed by Ohio University Press. p. 178.
  7. ^ a b Kretzschmar, Sabine (1996). "Art for Everyone: Cleveland Print Makers and the WPA". Transformations in Cleveland Art, 1796-1946: Community and Diversity in Early Modern America. Cleveland, OH: Distributed by Ohio University Press. p. 180.
  8. ^ Kretzschmar, Sabine (1996). "Art for Everyone: Cleveland Print Makers and the WPA". Transformations in Cleveland Art, 1796-1946: Community and Diversity in Early Modern America. Cleveland, OH: Distributed by Ohio University Press. pp. 180–181.
  9. ^ Kretzschmar, Sabine (1996). "Art for Everyone: Cleveland Print Makers and the WPA". Transformations in Cleveland Art, 1796-1946: Community and Diversity in Early Modern America. Cleveland, OH: Distributed by Ohio University Press. p. 183.
  10. ^ Kretzschmar, Sabine (1996). "Art for Everyone: Cleveland Print Makers and the WPA". Transformations in Cleveland Art, 1796-1946: Community and Diversity in Early Modern America. Cleveland, OH: Distributed by Ohio University Press. p. 185.
  11. ^ a b Kainen, Jacob (1972). "The Graphic Arts Division of the WPA Federal Art Project". In O’Connor, Francis (ed.). The New Deal Art Projects. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. p. 156.
  12. ^ Cleveland Artists Foundation (2006). Covering History: Revisiting Federal Art in Cleveland 1933-1943. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Artists Foundation. p. 31.
  13. ^ Kretzschmar, Sabine (1996). "Art for Everyone: Cleveland Print Makers and the WPA". Transformations in Cleveland Art, 1796-1946: Community and Diversity in Early Modern America. Cleveland, OH: Distributed by Ohio University Press. p. 187.
  14. ^ Kretzschmar, Sabine (1996). "Art for Everyone: Cleveland Print Makers and the WPA". Transformations in Cleveland Art, 1796-1946: Community and Diversity in Early Modern America. Cleveland, OH: Distributed by Ohio University Press. p. 188.
  15. ^ Kretzschmar, Sabine (1996). "Art for Everyone: Cleveland Print Makers and the WPA". Transformations in Cleveland Art, 1796-1946: Community and Diversity in Early Modern America. Cleveland, OH: Distributed by Ohio University Press. p. 190.
  16. ^ "Assembly Line | Smithsonian American Art Museum". americanart.si.edu.
  17. ^ "Beggar". clevelandart.org.
  18. ^ "Bridge #1". The Art Institute of Chicago.
  19. ^ "Gates and Bridges". University of Michigan Museum of Art.
  20. ^ "Akron Art Museum - Collections". Akron Art Museum.
  21. ^ Williams, Dave; Williams, Reba (September 1990). "Jolan Gross-Bettelheim: A Hidden Life". Print Quarterly. 7: 303.
  22. ^ a b c Stamey, Emily (2001). Jolán Gross-Bettelheim: the American Prints. Grinnell, IA: Faulconer Gallery. p. 6.
  23. ^ Taylor, Francis Henrty (1942). Artists for Victory: an Exhibition of Contemporary American Art: Paintings, Sculpture, Prints/sponsored by Artists for Victory, Inc. New York, NY: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. p. 34.
  24. ^ Williams, Dave; Williams, Reba (September 1990). "Jolan Gross-Bettelheim: A Hidden Life". Print Quarterly. 7: 304.
  • Cleveland Artists Foundation. Covering History: Revisiting Federal Art in Cleveland 1933-1943. Cleveland: Cleveland Artists Foundation, 2006.
  • Kainen, Jacob. “The Graphic Arts Division of the WPA Federal Art Project” in The New Deal Art Projects ed. Francis V. O’Connor. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1972: 155-176.
  • Kretzschmar, Sabine. “Art for Everyone: Cleveland Print Makers and the WPA” in Transformations in Cleveland Art, 1796-1946: Community and Diversity in Early Modern America. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art: Distributed by Ohio University Press, 1996: 176-197.
  • Stamey, Emily. Jolán Gross-Bettelheim: the American Prints. Grinnell, Iowa: Faulconer Gallery, 2001. Catalog of an exhibition held at the Print and Drawing Study Room of the Faulconer Gallery April 27-May 21, 2001.
  • Transformations in Cleveland Art, 1796-1946: Community and Diversity in Early Modern America. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art: Distributed by Ohio University Press, 1996.
  • Williams, Dave and Reba. “Jolan Gross-Bettelheim: A Hidden Life.” Print Quarterly, Vol. 7, No. 3 (September 1990): 303-7.

Bibliography

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