Louis Lozowick | Biography | Hollis Taggart Galleries

Louis Lozowick (1892-1973)

Born in Ludvinovka, Ukraine, Louis Lozowick became an important figure linking American avant-garde art with developments in Europe. After studying at the Kiev Art Institute from 1903 until 1905, he left Russia in 1906 for the United States. He studied for three years at the National Academy of Design and received a degree from Ohio State University. Between 1919 and 1922, he traveled to Pittsburgh, Chicago, Minneapolis, and Paris. Early in 1922, Lozowick left Paris for Berlin. During the two years he spent in Berlin he frequented bookstores, theaters, and cabarets, and became an integral member of modernist circles that included László Moholy-Nagy and El Lissitzky, among others.

Upon his return to New York in 1924, Lozowick pursued a varied and consistently successful career as a writer, printmaker, illustrator, painter, and set designer. Central to his body of work are hard-edged, geometric lithographs of skyscrapers and machinery. His set designs, based on constructivist ideas, were among the most innovative of the day.

In the 1930s, Lozowick was a muralist for the Public Works of Art Project (1933–34) and an active participant in the American Artists’ Congress, a group opposed to war and fascism. He also worked with the Artists’ Union to advocate for government support for the arts. Lozowick’s later career was marked by regular exhibitions and extensive international travel. He died in New Jersey in 1973, a year after a retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art.