Earle M. Pilgrim

Earle M. Pilgrim
Born	March 14, 1923 Brooklyn, NY, United States
Died	1976 New York City, United States

Earle Montrose Pilgrim (1923–1976) was an American artist whose work is within the stylistic milieu of Abstract Expressionism and Figurative Expressionism. Working in the early 1950s until the mid 1970s, Pilgrim's style is characterized by figuration informed by abstraction. The artist fluctuated between epic, large-scale compositions and intimate canvases and worked with a variety of media from painting to experimental film. Pilgrim's oeuvre reflects the artist's various interests from avant-garde portraiture to the notion of the occult, which were all figured through a Modernist interest in coloration, abstraction, and expression.

Born in Brooklyn, March 14, 1923 and raised at 206 Macon Street by his parents, Leon and Amy (Crane) Pilgrim; and one sister, Enid. Pilgrim describes his birth date in the following excerpt found in a sketchbook:

Mar. 14, 1923, just before the big crash, there was a big crash in front of a certain house in Brooklyn, lo ‘twas the stork bearing a 3 lb. gift for Leon and Amy Pilgrim, this 3 lb gift went through the various stages of development. When the glorious parcel had a reasonable chance of survival, Leon and Amy decided to name it (?) him (?) he (?) This last; "he" was somehow accepted, as proper usage in the British West Indies the birthplace of Both Leon and Amy.

Pilgrim was educated in the public system until the end of his second year of high school, where he was thrown out for wearing a top hat and coat at a school dance, instead of the required uniform, this event brought his father, Leon, to enroll Earle in an apprenticeship with a printmaker. On March 27, 1943, Pilgrim enlisted in the United States Army, where he played drums for the band and wrote for Yank, the Army Weekly, for the duration of the war until he was court-martialed for refusing to defer to a white officer.

When Pilgrim returned from the Army, he went to Greenwich Village and learned jewelry making by working with jeweler Sam Kramer. He studied at the Art Students League and at one point worked at Sotheby's.

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