Draft:Arnold Abramson

Arnold Abramson (March 1, 1928 – November 25, 2020) was an American scenic artist, painter, and educator. He was the winner of the Tony Honors for Excellence award in 2015. Also honored as a Master and Legend in 2012 at SUNY Purchase.

A draftsman, painter, and sculptor, he was a figurative artist in the realist tradition. His work included scenic paintings as well as portraits and sculptures of his family and friends throughout the decades.

Early Life and Education

Abramson was born in Queens, New York, to Louis Tobolsky Abramson and Rose Ostrin Abramson. He began painting as a young child. As a teen while attending the prestigious High School of Music and Art in New York City he studied at The Art Students League and under Raphael Soyer and Moses Soyer. After graduating in 1946 he enrolled in Tyler School of Art at Temple University where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1950.

Career

He returned to New York City and launched his Scenic Arts career in 1950 painting for Triangle Studios and Dunkel Studios and joining the United Scenic Artists Union Local 829 in 1951. When William Nolan opened Nolan Scenery Studios in the newly purposed Brooklyn Ice Palace in 1956, Abramson joined him as Charge Scenic Artist and was made a partner in the business. Later Abramson would become owner of Nolan Studios.

After a prolific career of painting over 600 shows for Broadway productions and numerous more for New York City Ballet and other productions, Abramson was awarded a Tony Honor for Excellence in Theater in 2015. He also was awarded the Second Annual Purchase College’s Broadway Technical Backstage Legends and Masters Award in 2012. Among the numerous shows Abramson painted were the original production of The King and I, My Fair Lady, 42nd Street, Annie, Hello Dolly!, Sunday in the Park with George, Camelot, Sweeney Todd, The Sound of Music, Evita, Cats, Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables and Bells Are Ringing. He also designed and painted the murals for the Crystal Room at Tavern on The Green and the Grand Ballroom in the Empire Hotel plus many restaurants and private homes in the New York and Connecticut area. He worked with designers including Oliver Smith, Jo Mielziner, John Lee Beatty, Ben Edwards, David Hays, Robin Wagner, Raoul Pene Du Bois, David Mitchell, Boris Aronson, Rouben Ter-Arutunian, and Tony Walton. Paralleling his busy career Abramson found time to teach Scene Painting for seven years at Yale University and for 22 years at New York University Tisch School of the Arts.

Abramson moved to Boynton Beach, Florida in 1991 and opened Studio South, a Union shop where he painted several backdrops that were sent back to New York for Broadway and New York City Ballet productions. Here he also painted sets and backdrops and designed four productions for Miami City Ballet. He closed Studio South in 2005 and moved to Coconut Studios to paint until his retirement in 2012 at age 84.

Personal life

Paralleling his professional career in Scenic Art Abramson continued participating in life drawing and life painting groups and working in his home studio throughout his life.

He remained a lifelong friend of artists David Levine, Aaron Shikler, Daniel Schwartz, Burton Silverman, and Harvey Dinnerstein. Levine, and Shikler founded a NYC weekly life painting group which Abramson was an original member of, that eventually would be the subject of a CBS Morning segment. Abramson with his oversized scene painting brush would become the subject of one of Dinnerstein’s pastel paintings which now hangs in the New Britain Museum of American Art in New Britain, Connecticut. Abramson’s woodcut Street Scene was exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum Sixth National Print Annual Exhibition and remains in their collection. His monotype Seated Figure became part of their collection as a gift from the Louis E. Stern Foundation. His work also hangs in the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio. In Florida he exhibited at Artworks Studio and Gallery in Lake Worth and The Artists’ Guild Gallery in Delray Beach his works included plein-air paintings of the Boynton Inlet and the undeveloped west Boynton landscape.

Sadly Abramson struggled with advancing macular degeneration during his last few years of life. He died at the age of 92.