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When considering the work of Esphyr Slobodkina, to do so from an
interdisciplinary perspective is insightful. The playful, wry
titles that she favors hint at an alternate, successful career as a
renowned author and illustrator of children’s books, including her
classic,
Caps for Sale.
She has participated in a broad spectrum of other fields as well,
including architecture, interior design, polychrome textile
printing, millinery, and couture dressmaking with her mother. She
has designed two homes. And no family residence is considered
complete until it has been "Esphyrized." She is an extraordinary
personality and an engaging raconteur who prides herself on having
been totally self-reliant throughout her long and fascinating life.
Resourceful and creative, she has written her own autobiography in
three volumes, replete with photographs, correspondence with many
luminaries of twentieth century art, and family recipes from her
native Russia. Her detailed and engaging narrative provides a
fascinating glimpse into the art world of the middle years of the
twentieth century.
Born in Siberia in 1908, Slobodkina moved with her family to
Manchuria to escape the political unrest of the Russian revolution.
As a young woman, she traveled alone to America, enrolling at the
National Academy of Design, an experience she found stultifying.
However in 1931 she met fellow student, Ilya Bolotowsky, who for a
time became her artistic mentor, and from 1933 to 1938, her
husband. Like other Russian modernists, surrounded by ancient icons
and a rich craft tradition, Slobodkina developed a lifelong
appreciation of clear, rich colors, and flat, stylized forms. By
the late 1930s she had begun working in a flattened, abstracted
style that incorporated line, suspended or interlocking forms, and
pure, unmodulated color. Her abiding affection for the Russian
craft tradition is reflected in her ongoing interest in crafts and
the decorative arts.
Since the inception in 1937 of
American Abstract Artists - she was a
founding member along with Bolotowsky - Slobodkina has served as the
organization’s president, secretary and treasure, as well as its
bibliographer. She was a regular exhibitor in their annual shows,
and a close associate of the "Park Avenue Cubists," George L.K.
Morris, Suzy Frelinghuysen, Charles Green Shaw and A.E. Gallatin.
Indeed, in 1940 Gallatin, who owned two of her works, organized her
first one-person exhibition at his Gallery of Living Art.
Through the 1940s Slobodkina exhibited along with Byron Browne, John
Graham, Adolph Gottlieb and Mark Rothko; she entertained Mondrian at
a dinner party at her apartment. Ad Reinhardt included her in his
famous cartoon, “How to Look at Modern Art in America.” She has
served fellowships at both Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony.
Obviously no stranger to the art world, Slobodkina describes herself
as a "late bloomer," someone who was always so actively
engaged in the business of making a living that for many years she
never really had time to actively promote her own work.
Nonetheless, her paintings and sculptures appear in notable private
and public collections. Her murals decorate public facilities
around the country.
Given the many competing demands upon her time it is remarkable that
Slobodkina has created such a substantial body of work; it is
informative to approach it from a perspective that reflects her
diverse interests. She may be best known for her paintings, but
only because she chose to focus on this medium when exhibiting with
American Abstract Artists. Although she began working abstractly in
1934, she has always taken pleasure in working representationally
when so inclined. Slobodkina began creating sculpture of found
objects in 1938; with roots in Russian Constructivism and affinities
with the art of Calder and Miró these remain among her most
appealing works. For many years she found inspiration in the keys
and innards of discarded
typewriters, but computer components now appear regularly in her
small sculptures. Nothing goes to waste. Buttons, trim and squares
of fabric are incorporated into jewelry, collages, and tapestries.
Taut parallel lines of laced cord - a signature motif - appear in
paintings, assemblage and sculpture.
Slobodkina’s work is encompassing, it includes murals, collages,
jewelry design, and "serendipographs". Her astute sensitivity to
color enables her to make the most unlikely combinations succeed
both in her paintings and in her home decoration. With a highly
refined sense of artistic style, she often favors ornate Victorian
frames for her hard-edge geometric
abstractions. Everything is carefully crafted, but dating her work
is not a personal priority. In a hand-written 1983 addendum to her
autobiography, she writes "I always painted, sculpted, constructed,
made collages, wall hangings, ‘serendipograph glass sandwiches’,
dolls, books, clothes, furniture, etc., etc., and all at
approximately the same time." Art theory and trends, politics, and
philosophy are unimportant to her. Instead, "Plastic arts belong in
a sphere of sensual delights." Traversing nearly a century of
inspiration, it is Slobodkina’s enduring delight in the creative act
and her single-minded pursuit of her aesthetic vision in a
multiplicity of media that continues to enchant.
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