SOYER, MOSES (1899-1974)

"Seated Nude" (c.1940)
ink & wash
cm
signed lower left
*private collection, Sydney
 
Soyer was an important, award-winning Russian-born American Social Realist.
Moses, twin brother of famed artist, Raphael, studied art in New York, first at Cooper Union and later at the Ferrer Art School, where he studied under the Ashcan painters Robert Henri and George Bellows. He had his first solo exhibition in 1926 and began teaching art the following year at the Contemporary Art School and The New School. Soyer's wife, Ida, was a dancer, and dancers are a recurring subject in his paintings. Soyer was elected to the National Academy of Design in 1963 and in 1966, he was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters. Moses and Raphael were members of the National Academy of Design and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He died in the Chelsea Hotel in New York while painting dancer and choreographer Phoebe Neville. His work is represented The Brooklyn Museum, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (DC), the Honolulu Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art (NYC), the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Phillips Collection (DC), the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), and the Whitney Museum of American Art (NYC). His work is regularly exhibited alongside the best American artist's of the 20th century, including Edward Hopper, George Tooker, Charles Wheeler, etc. His obituary was published in the New York Times, reflecting his importance as a prominent figure of American Modernism!!