ILYA BOLOTOWSKY (1907-1981)

AN ANALYSIS OF THE ARTIST'S WORK

"I want things to be pure and simple."- Ilya Bolotowsky (1974)

While growing up in Russia, Bolotowsky was able to develop his interest in art through private teaching and tutoring, either from his professional tutor or his mother (a self-taught artist). However, he soon received an education in Istanbul and New York City. His beginning paintings were created through a combination of biomorphic and geometric shapes on the flat picture plane. Consisting of timid arrangements of small rectangles on rectangular and diamond-shaped grounds with muted, mixed colors he employed by combining melancholy minor colors, as well as painting with primary colors. His beginning paintings are typical of many sober, unresolved, but serviceable cubist compositions, based on synthetic cubism and Russian constructivism and suprematism. An example of this early style is Abstraction (1934), an oil on canvas, depicting a combination of biomorphic and geometric shapes in contrasting colors.

Bolotowsky's style was soon influenced by Piet Mondrian and Joan Miró and their abstract art. Bolotowsky first saw Piet Mondrian's paintings in 1933 at the Gallatin Collection at New York University. Mondrian's art fell under the De Stijl style of modernism, a form of nonobjective art that emphasized the need for abstraction and simplification and for clarity, certainty, and order. After this first confrontation with the style of De Stijl, Bolotowsky's art evolved from his earlier figurative and semi-abstraction to an even more abstract style that he called neo-plasticism.

Over time, Bolotowsky discarded all illusion of space and banished biomorphic forms from his paintings, developing his own style from the true neo-plasticism discipline. He limited the right angle relationships between forms and decided to banish the diagonal because it disturbed the balanced spatial tension and harmony he was aiming to achieve. Bolotowsky explains, "I work in the neo-plastic style because for me it is the most meaningful and exciting direction of art. As a neo-plasticist, I strive after an ideal of harmony; neoplasticism can achieve unequaled tension, equilibrium, and harmony through the relationship of the vertical and horizontal elements." (Utah Museum of Fine Arts). Mondrian's clear style aided Bolotowsky in achieving balance throughout his paintings by using right angles, eliminating the diagonal, and creating a sense of order (American Art at the Phillips Collection). However, unlike Mondrian, Bolotowsky did not restrict himself to the traditional style of De Stijl, expanding his palette and not restricting it to the primary colors of yellow, red and blue (although he did generally use these colors in the larger areas of his canvas). Bolotowsky preferred to emphasize a variety of colors that were muted, earthy, unorthodox in variety and totally un-European in feeling. Starting around 1947, he also experienced with shaped canvases, starting with a diamond-shape, followed by ovals, tondos (round), ellipse, and odd rectangles. These complicated shapes display the high degree of control Bolotowsky had in his later work.

Continuing to change in style, Bolotowsky was influenced by the Abstract Expressionist movement in the 1950s. His colors became tuned up and saturated and his shapes became larger and fewer. His paintings stand out with moreclashes in colors and resolutions of bright rectangular shapes. Bolotowsky's sophisticated geometric abstractions were based on a balance between linear spatial divisions and striking color tonalities. His paintings are said to have a "particular aliveness that distinguishes art from decoration" (Herrera). An example of these later images is Large Cobalt Diamond (1957). It has fewer and larger colors and shapes, and the edge of the canvas balances the linear movements of the image.

In 1961, Bolotowsky began applying his favored primary colors to column-like three dimensional forms. The painted imagery on the surface of these columns and sculpture reflect his paintings. These three-dimensional sculptures allowed Bolotowsky to create an "ideal, balanced harmony" through the interaction of building blocks: line, color, and plane (Biographical Resource Center). His paintings within the 1970s use primary colors mixed with black and white, emphasizing the vivid contrasts between colors. He uses geometric shapes that are more rigid with straight edges, becoming more like decorative art (Raynor). In addition to painting, Bolotowsky created films and plays. He expressed various kinds of subjective and emotional issue within them, which he consciously eliminated from his neo-plastic pictorial images.

CHRONOLOGY

1907 Born on July 1 in St. Petersburg, Russia
1921-23 Attends the College of St. Joseph, Istanbul
1923 Immigrates to United States (New York City, NY)
1923-30 Attends the National Academy of Design in New York City, NY
1929 Becomes an official American citizen
1930 Becomes a member of The Ten
1930 First independent exhibition at New York's G.R.D. Studios, NY
1932 Travels to Europe (10 months)
1933 Marries Esphyr Slobodkina
1933 Goes to Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, New York
1936 Paints the Williamsburg Housing Project Mural, Brooklyn, New York
1936 Creates the American Abstract Artists Group
1939 Creates New York World's Fair mural located in the Hall of Medical Science
1941 Completes a mural in the Hospital of Chronic Disease on Welfare Island
1941 Becomes a technical translator for World War II
1946 Independent exhibition at the New Art Circle
1946-48 Teaches at Black Mountain College
1948-57 Associate professor at University of Wyoming
1954-56 Teaches at Brooklyn College
1957-65 Professor of art at State Teachers' College in New Paltz, NY
1963 Wins first prize at Midwest Film Festival at the University of Chicago for Metanoia
1963 Teaches at Hunter College
1965-71 Teaches at the University of Wisconsin in Whitewater
1969 Teaches at the University of New Mexico
1973 Teaches at Queen's College
1976 Retires from teaching
1981 Dies at the age of 74

COLLECTIONS

Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York
Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, Connecticut
Art Institute of Chicago
Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, Alabama
Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York
Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Virginia
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio
Guggenheim Museum, New York
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.
Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, Indiana
University of Iowa Museum of Art, New York, NY
Lyman Alyn Museum, New London, Connecticut
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Michener Art Museum, University of Texas, Austin, Texas
University of Minnesota, Duluth, Minnesota
Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, New York
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts
Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
National Collection of Fine Arts, Washington, D.C.
New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, New Jersey
University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, North Carolina
Oklahoma Art Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.
Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island
Edward Root Collection, Utica, New York
Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts
Salt Lake City Art Center, Salk Lake City, Utah
San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, California
Sheldon Memorial Museum, Norwich, Connecticut
Slater Memorial Museum, Norwich, Connecticut
Societe Anonyme Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
J.B. Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky
The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas
Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio
Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, Indiana
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Whitney Museum, New York
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut

MURALS

1936 Williamsburg Housing Project, New York
1939 Hall of Medical Science, World’s Fair, New York
1946 Phillips Steel Co., Pittsburg, Pennsylvania
1963 Cinema 1, New York
1968 Southampton College, New York
1973 North Central Bronx Hospital, New York
1978 Social Securities Service Building, Chicago, Illinois
1979 Port Authority Ship Terminal, New York
1981 Houston Intercontinental Airport, Terminal C, Houston Texas

MEMBERSHIPS

American Abstract Artists (co-founder, charter member, president)
Audubon Society
Federation of Modern Painters and Sculptors (co-founder, charter member, vice-president)
Fine Arts Federation, New York (board of directors)
National Society of Mural Painters
Woodstock Artists Association

AWARDS

1925, 1926 First prize for drawing and Hallgarten prize for painting, National Academy of Design, New York
1929-30 Scholarship, Tiffany Foundation, New York
1933 Fellowship, Yaddo Foundation, Saratoga Springs, New York
1941 Grant, Museum of Non-Objective Painting, New York
1953-54 Grant for Experimental Film Work, University of Wyoming Graduate School, Laramie
1959 First prize for painting, Sharon Creative Arts Foundation, Connecticut
1963 First prize for Metanoia, Midwest Film Festival, University of Chicago
1971 Abstract painting prize, National Institute of Arts and Letters
1973 Guggenheim Foundation Grant