Gifted, highly original painter Arnold Friedman charted
his own unique course in early twentieth-century modernism.
Friedman was born to Hungarian Jewish parents in Corona,
Queens, where he worked as a post office clerk for more than
forty years, painting on evenings and weekends. He would
only devote himself to full-time painting after he retired
at age 59 in 1933. Under the auspices of the Federal Arts
Project of the Works Progress Administration, Friedman painted
murals for Chalfonte-Haddon Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey
and post office buildings in Orange, Virginia; Kingstree,
South Carolina; and Warrenton, Georgia.
Friedman’s style underwent several transformations
during his career. He began working as a fine artist in 1905
under the tutelage of Robert Henri and Kenneth Hayes Miller
at the Art Students League in New York. These painters had
an important influence on his early style, which was geared
towards representational subjects. However, during
his studies at the Art Students League, Friedman found himself
a misfit as an older postal clerk, and harnessed the belief
that “every painter must learn his own trade.”
In 1909, Friedman took a six-month leave of absence from
his job to study art in Paris. During this time, he was exposed
to the virtues of Impressionism. He was most influenced by
the Pointillism of Camille Pisarro, and his admiration of
other Impressionists and Post-Impressionists was reflected
in his own art after his return to New York. Friedman’s
trip to France also introduced him to Cubism, which he went
on to experiment with for a brief period. Drawing extensively
from these European influences, Friedman developed his own
style and created a unique approach to painting.
Upon his return to New York, Friedman employed cool tonalities
and smooth finishes; he generally painted traditional subjects
of landscapes, portraits, and nudes all expressing his deep
commitment to color. Friedman also worked in a Synchromist-inspired
idiom at this time, exploring color contrasts through abstracted
planes. In the 1910s and 1920s, he exhibited with many
of the most avant-garde venues and dealers of the period,
including the Montross Galleries, the Society of Independent
Artists, and Bourgeois Galleries.
Later in his career, Friedman devoted himself to working
from nature in an abstracted style, abandoning the brush
for a palette knife. This method of painting allowed for
powerful effects of texture and abbreviated forms. His style
during his later career is distinct, as Friedman painted
with scumbled surfaces that create contours and texture to
define characteristics of his subjects, typically landscapes,
cityscapes, interiors, still lifes, and portraits. Throughout
his career, he received attention from the most influential
critics of his era; these reviews generally praised Friedman’s
individuality. In 1945 Clement Greenberg described a group
of paintings that “established him as one of the strongest
and most original landscapists we have.” Greenberg
went on to observe, “His originality is the expression
of a pure, honest, serious, and independent personality rather
than of a method.”(1)
Until his death in his seventies, Friedman was actively
painting and developing his unique style. His oeuvre appears
to have been limited to approximately 300 works.
Friedman’s work is represented in major collections,
including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern
Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Newark Museum,
and the Detroit Institute of Arts. He was also a member of
the Society of Independent Artists and the Salons of America.
1. Clement Greenberg, “Art,” The Nation,
133 (March 17, 1945), 314.
© Copyright 2007 Hollis Taggart Galleries
