Jules Olitski
| Jules Olitski | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Jevel Demikovski March 27, 1922 Snovsk, Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic |
| Died | February 4, 2007 (aged 84) |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Pratt Institute, National Academy of Design, Ossip Zadkine School, Academia de la Grande Chaumiere, New York University |
| Known for | Painting, sculpture, printmaking |
| Movement | Color Field painting, Lyrical Abstraction, Abstract Expressionism |
Jevel Demikovski (March 27, 1922 – February 4, 2007), known professionally as Jules Olitski, was an American painter, printmaker, and sculptor.
Olitski was born Jevel Demikovski in Snovsk, in the Ukrainian SSR (now Ukraine), a few months after his father, a commissar, was executed by the Soviet government. He emigrated to the United States in 1923 with his mother and grandmother and settled in Brooklyn. His grandmother cared for him while his mother worked to support the family. In 1926 his mother married Hyman Olitsky (note "y" ending), a widower with two sons. A daughter was born in 1930.
Olitski showed an aptitude for drawing and by 1935 was taking occasional art classes in Manhattan. He attended public schools in New York, winning an art prize upon his graduation from high school. At an exhibit of the work of some of the great masters at the New York World's Fair in 1939 he was very impressed by Rembrandt's portraits. Subsequently he won a scholarship to study art at Pratt Institute and was admitted to the National Academy of Design in New York. His education continued at Beaux Arts Institute in New York from 1940-42.
After discharge from the Army in 1945, Olitski married and travelled to Asheville, NC and Mexico, returned to New York, and then in the late 40s went to Paris on the G.I. Bill where he studied at the Ossip Zadkine School and the Academia de la Grande Chaumiere, both in Paris. In Paris he saw the European modern masters and engaged in a severe self-analysis, which involved painting while blindfolded to remove himself from all of his customary habits and facility.
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