Max Spivak

{{Short description|American painter (1906–1981)}}

Max Spivak (1906 in Bregnun, Poland - 1981 in New York City) was an American visual artist known primarily as a ceramic muralist.

Initially Spivak pursued a career as an accountant, then he travelled to Paris where he met the painter Arshile Gorky who was a big influence on him.

Spivak was among the many artists who created murals for the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) during the American Great Depression.{{Cite news |date=1936-10-22 |title=Art Notes |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1936/10/22/archives/art-notes.html |access-date=2023-09-01 |issn=0362-4331}} During this time, one of his assistants was the future abstract expressionist icon Lee Krasner.{{cite web|url=https://www.spellmangallery.com/artists/lee-krasner|title=Lee Krasner|work=Spellman Gallery}}

Spivak is especially noted for his mosaic mural in the vestibule entryway of 111 West 40th street in midtown Manhattan (today re-addressed as 5 Bryant Park), a work which through abstract forms pays tribute to some of the tools of the garment industry which once flourished in the location's Lower Manhattan district.{{Cite web |title=Oral history interview with Max Spivak, circa 1965 {{!}} Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution |url=https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-max-spivak-12105 |access-date=2023-09-01 |website=www.aaa.si.edu |language=en}}{{Cite web |title=Max Spivak {{!}} Smithsonian American Art Museum |url=https://americanart.si.edu/artist/max-spivak-4580 |access-date=2023-09-01 |website=americanart.si.edu |language=en}}{{Cite news |date=1981-12-14 |title=MAX SPIVAK |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/12/14/obituaries/max-spivak.html |access-date=2023-09-01 |issn=0362-4331}}

Spivak's work was included in two exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New Horizons in American Art in 1935 and Painting and Sculpture in Architecture in 1949.{{Cite web |title=Max Spivak {{!}} MoMA |url=https://www.moma.org/artists/65736 |access-date=2023-09-01 |website=The Museum of Modern Art |language=en}}