Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 10

Robert A. Birmelin
Chinese Man In Tree, American Modernist Abstract Etching

About the Item

Born in Newark, New Jersey, Robert Birmelin became a professor of fine arts at Queens College in New York, and is known for paintings that magnify through texture the realism of nature. He earned his BA in 1956 and his MFA in 1960 from Yale School of Art and Architecture and also studied at Cooper Union and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. In 1960, he earned a Fulbright Scholarship, which took him to the Slade School of Art in London. His work has been acquired by 40 public collections including New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Museum of Modern Art and Washington’s Hirshorn Museum. Among the various art magazines and journals where articles on Mr. Birmelin’s work have appeared are Art In America, American Artists, and Art Forum. Additionally, he has received numerous grants and awards from such organizations as The American Academy in Rome, The National Endowment for the Arts, The American Institute of Arts and Letters, and the Joan Mitchell Foundation. From the 1970s to the mid-1990s, Mr. Birmelin found his principal inspiration in the streets of New York where he was fascinated by the energy and diversity of city life. His large paintings evoke movement, using focus and depth manipulations to suggest a close spatial and psychological relationship between the viewer and the world Birmelin has depicted. Hands often play an important role in these works, as exemplified by “The Twenty Dollars Bill.” From 1993 to 2000, he became absorbed by memory, its unreliability and contradictions. These paintings are of states of mind, structured as a series of “reversible compositions,” which initially present a credible depiction of a place, and then after a moment, reveal insoluble contradictions created by contrasting opposing images of equal visual weight. A new series of images of the life of the urban crowd was begun in 2001 and continues to the present. Many of these paintings have a sweeping sense of the choreography of masses of people in motion and reflect the tensions of contemporary urban reality. Selected Grants and Scholarships 1960-61 U.S. Government Grant (Fulbright) for study in the United Kingdom 1961-64 The American Academy in Rome 1955 National Institute of Arts and Letters 1973 Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation 1976, 1982, 1990 National Endowment for the Arts 2005 The Joan Mitchell Foundation 1980, 1988, 1998, 2006 The New Jersey State Council on the Arts Selected Public Collections Boston Museum of Fine Art, Boston, MA Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY Hirschorn Museum, Washington, DC Hood Art Museum, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH Library of Congress, Washington, DC The Metropolitan Museum, New York, NY The Museum of the City of New York The Museum of Contemporary Art, Nagoaka, Japan The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY National Academy of Design, New York, NY New York Historical Society, New York, NY New York Public Library, New York, NY San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
More From This SellerView All
  • Falling Figure, American Modernist Abstract Etching
    By Robert A. Birmelin
    Located in Surfside, FL
    Born in Newark, New Jersey, Robert Birmelin became a professor of fine arts at Queens College in New York, and is known for paintings that magnify through texture the realism of natu...
    Category

    20th Century American Modern Interior Prints

    Materials

    Etching

  • Man In Field With Dogs, American Modernist Abstract Etching
    By Robert A. Birmelin
    Located in Surfside, FL
    Born in Newark, New Jersey, Robert Birmelin became a professor of fine arts at Queens College in New York, and is known for paintings that magnify through texture the realism of natu...
    Category

    20th Century American Modern Interior Prints

    Materials

    Etching

  • Man In Field With Dogs, American Modernist Abstract Etching
    By Robert A. Birmelin
    Located in Surfside, FL
    Born in Newark, New Jersey, Robert Birmelin became a professor of fine arts at Queens College in New York, and is known for paintings that magnify through texture the realism of natu...
    Category

    20th Century American Modern Interior Prints

    Materials

    Etching

  • Speedometer, American Modernist Abstract Etching
    By Robert A. Birmelin
    Located in Surfside, FL
    Born in Newark, New Jersey, Robert Birmelin became a professor of fine arts at Queens College in New York, and is known for paintings that magnify through texture the realism of natu...
    Category

    20th Century American Modern Interior Prints

    Materials

    Etching

  • Speedometer, American Modernist Abstract Etching
    By Robert A. Birmelin
    Located in Surfside, FL
    Born in Newark, New Jersey, Robert Birmelin became a professor of fine arts at Queens College in New York, and is known for paintings that magnify through texture the realism of natu...
    Category

    20th Century American Modern Interior Prints

    Materials

    Etching

  • Fallen Figures. Standing Dog, American Modernist Abstract Etching
    By Robert A. Birmelin
    Located in Surfside, FL
    Born in Newark, New Jersey, Robert Birmelin became a professor of fine arts at Queens College in New York, and is known for paintings that magnify through texture the realism of natu...
    Category

    20th Century American Modern Interior Prints

    Materials

    Etching

You May Also Like
  • Bernard Sanders, My Room
    Located in New York, NY
    Sanders was very careful to make sure this subject was at his home at 2020 Grand Avenue in the Bronx. Signed in pencil.
    Category

    Early 20th Century American Modern Interior Prints

    Materials

    Etching

  • Bernard Sanders, Man at Piano
    Located in New York, NY
    For a print that's nearly one hundred years old it feels very contemporary. Signed and titled in pencil. Besides the etching I think there is some false biting that adds tone here.
    Category

    Early 20th Century American Modern Interior Prints

    Materials

    Etching

  • Bernard Sanders, (Fantastic City)
    Located in New York, NY
    This extravagant subject is a clear exception in the oeuvre of Bernard Sanders. Signed in pencil; interestingly signed in the plate at the upper right ...
    Category

    Early 20th Century American Modern Interior Prints

    Materials

    Etching

  • (Four Women at Hat Store)
    Located in New York, NY
    This is such an interesting image. Are there 'Four women'? Is the head on the upper right from a hat store or is she another person in the scene. And what a...
    Category

    Mid-20th Century American Modern Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Etching

  • William P. Hicks, Circus
    Located in New York, NY
    William P. Hicks has drawn everything about the circus that will fit in the plate. The main figure is an aerial act with a woman balancing on rope held by a figure on the floor. Ther...
    Category

    1930s American Modern Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Etching

  • Points of Departure II: Nijinsky Variations
    By Peter Milton
    Located in Middletown, NY
    Points of Departure II: Nijinsky Variations Robert E. Townsend, 1996 Resist-ground etching and engraving on BFK-Rives paper, 24 x 38 inches (618 x 965 mm), full margins. Signed, ti...
    Category

    1990s American Modern Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Engraving, Etching

Recently Viewed

View All