John Graham: Artist and Avatar

14 April –12 June 1988

John Graham, also known as Ivan Dombrowski, Ivan Dabrowsky, John G. Dowbrowski, and Ioannus Magus, is a little-known but fascinating figure in the development of American Modernism. He was a painter, draftsman, writer, advisor, and collector, and inspired many artists associated with the “New York School” in the 1940s and 1950s. Before emigrating from Russia to the United States, Graham served on the Czar’s legal staff and as a cavalry officer. Upon his arrival in New York, he became a member of the Art Students League where he was the first to appreciate the talents of artists such as Jackson Pollock, Alexander Calder, Stuart Davis, and Willem de Kooning. The exhibition features work from these artists as well as from Graham’s entire career, from the early abstractions of the 1920s to his later return to representative, figural works in the 1950s, all of which is punctuated by his signature cryptic style and emblematic detail.

Curator: Eleanor Green, special guest curator at the Phillips Collection, Washington D.C.

Funding was provided in part by Harold T. Martin fund, Mrs. Robert b. Mayer, the Stanley M. Freehling Family Foundation, the Sara Lee Foundation, the Illinois Arts Council, and the Institute of Museum Services. 

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