Mitchell Siporin
{{Short description|Social Realist American painter}}
{{Infobox artist
| name = Mitchell Siporin
| image = Mitchell Siporin.jpg
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| birth_date = {{birth date|1910|5|5|mf=y}}
| birth_place = New York City
| death_date = {{Death year and age|1976|1910}}
| death_place = Newton, Massachusetts
| nationality =
| education =
| field = Painter
| training =
| movement = Social Realism
| works =
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File:Back O' The Yards 3 Siporin.jpg
Mitchell Siporin (1910–1976) was a Social Realist American painter.Ted Rall, Attitude: the new subversive political cartoonists, Syracuse, New York: Nantier Beall Minoustchine Publishing, 2002 [https://books.google.com/books?id=U0mpECiCPkYC&dq=%22mitchell+siporin%22&pg=PT106]{{Cite web |url=http://www.oakton.edu/museum/Siporin.html |title=Oakton Community College biography |access-date=2010-06-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100528041938/http://www.oakton.edu/museum/Siporin.html |archive-date=2010-05-28 |url-status=dead }}
Biography
Mitchell Siporin was born on May 5, 1910, in New York City{{cite web |title=Mitchell Siporin |url=https://rkd.nl/nl/explore/artists/72845 |website=RKD |access-date=2 November 2022 |language=nl}} to Hyman, a truck driver, and Jennie Siporin, both immigrants from Poland,1930 United States Federal Census and grew up in Chicago.Abram Leon Sachar, Brandeis University: A Host at Last, Waltham, Massachusetts: Brandeis University Press, 1995, p. 157 [https://books.google.com/books?id=axYr8im9gqcC&pg=PA157] Siporin attended School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He did illustrations for Esquire and other magazines. Beginning in the mid-1930s, Siporin worked as a painter for the Illinois Art Project through the Works Progress Administration.{{cite web |title=Mitchell Siporin |url=https://www.chicagomodern.org/artists/mitchell-siporin |website=Modernism in the New City: Chicago Artists, 1920-1950 |access-date=2 November 2022}} Together with Edward Millman, he painted "the largest single mural project awarded for a post office by the Section of Fine Arts" in the Central Post Office in St Louis, Missouri.
In late 1943 he was deployed as a sergeant in the Army Artist Unit, where he served alongside Rudolph von Ripper. He sent back drawings and watercolours from North Africa and Italy.{{cite book|title=The Army at War: A Graphic Record by American Artists|publisher=United States. War Finance Division|date=31 December 1943|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JSxuKQTZDXQC}}
He married Miriam Tane in Manhattan to November 9, 1945.New York City, Marriage Indexes, 1907-1995 He was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1945 and 1947.{{cite web |title=Mitchell Siporin |url=https://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/mitchell-siporin/ |website=John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation |access-date=2 November 2022}} In 1949, he won the Prix de Rome in painting.
In 1951, he founded the Department of Fine Arts at Brandeis University.Rachel Rosenfield Lafo, Painting in Boston, 1950-2000, Amherst, Massachusetts: University of Massachusetts Press, 2002, p. 204 [https://books.google.com/books?id=BbFbcxdmOQ0C&pg=PA204] In 1956, he became the first curator of the Brandeis University Art Collection.
Siporin died in 1976 in Newton, Massachusetts. He was Jewish.Irving Cutler, The Jews of Chicago: From Shtetl to Suburb, Champaign, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1996, p. 146 [https://books.google.com/books?id=85k85NhemBgC&pg=PA146]
Works
Siporin's work is in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago,{{Cite web|url=http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/artist/Mitchell+Siporin|title=Mitchell Siporin {{!}} The Art Institute of Chicago|website=www.artic.edu|language=en|access-date=2018-06-11}} the Detroit Institute of Arts,{{cite web |title=Railroaders |url=https://dia.org/collection/railroaders-61526 |website=Detroit Institute of Arts Museum |access-date=2 November 2022 |language=en}} the Metropolitan Museum of Art,{{cite web |title=Pueblito |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/487995 |website=Metropolitan Museum of Art |access-date=2 November 2022}} the Museum of Modern Art,{{cite web |title=Mitchell Siporin |url=https://www.moma.org/artists/5452 |website=The Museum of Modern Art |access-date=2 November 2022 |language=en}} the National Gallery of Art,{{cite web |title=Mitchell Siporin |url=https://www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.34007.html |website=National Gallery of Art |access-date=2 November 2022}} the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts,{{cite web |title=Mitchell Siporin |url=https://www.pafa.org/museum/collection-artist/mitchell-siporin |website=Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts |access-date=2 November 2022}} the Smithsonian American Art Museum,{{cite web |title=Mitchell Siporin |url=https://americanart.si.edu/artist/mitchell-siporin-4467 |website=Smithsonian American Art Museum |access-date=2 November 2022}} the Whitney Museum of American Art,{{cite web |title=Mitchell Siporin |url=https://whitney.org/artists/1227 |website=Whitney Museum of American Art |access-date=2 November 2022 |language=en}} and Albert G. Lane Technical High School in Chicago.{{cite web|
url= https://chicagohistoricschools.wordpress.com/2012/11/12/albert-g-lane-technical-high-school/|title= Albert G. Lane Technical High School|date= 12 November 2012|publisher= Chicago Historic Schools|accessdate= 21 August 2015}}
In 1947 his painting End of an Era won the Logan Medal of the Arts at the 51st Annual Exhibition in Chicago.{{cite web| url =http://www.artic.edu/sites/default/files/libraries/pubs/1947/AIC1947ArtofChi51stAn_comb.pdf|title = 51st Annual Exhibition|publisher= Art Institute of Chicago|accessdate = 3 February 2015}}
See also
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- {{Commons category-inline|Mitchell Siporin}}
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20100929091817/http://www.comradesinart.net/comrades_flv/Mitchell_Siporin/index.html Mitchell Siporin art at "Comrades In Art" online show]
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Category:Painters from Chicago
Category:20th-century American painters
Category:American male painters
Category:20th-century American Jews
Category:Section of Painting and Sculpture artists
Category:Brandeis University faculty