Paul Meltsner

Paul Meltsner
Born	Paul Raphael Meltsner 1905 New York, NY
Died	1966 Woodstock, NY
Nationality	American
Known for	Painting
Movement	Social Realism

Paul Raphael Meltsner (1905–1966) was an American artist who was widely recognized for his Works Progress Administration (WPA) era paintings and lithographs, and who was later known for his iconic portraits of celebrities in the performing arts.

Paul Meltsner sold his first painting when he was eight years old to the government of Palestine for $25. He was born in New York City and attended public schools in Harlem before graduating Flushing High School in 1922. Meltsner later studied at the National Academy of Design and did illustration work for Coronet and Bachelor magazines.

In the 1930s, Meltsner participated in the Federal Arts Project of the WPA. He toured the country in an old Ford, visiting farms and factories. His works represented the social realism that was popular with WPA artists of the time. His oil paintings portrayed rural landscapes, industrial city scapes, and laborers at work. His colors were bright and bold and his depictions were simple yet iconic.

Meltsner's 1937 mural, Ohio, in the Bellevue, Ohio post office, depicted a heroic scene of laboring Ohio farmers and factory workers and remains an exemplary specimen of the mural work that was awarded by the Department of the Treasury's Section of Painting and Sculpture.

In 1937, Meltsner painted a self-portrait titled Paul, Marcella and Van Gogh. In the work, he poses in his studio with his daughter and his wire fox terrier, holding a workman's hammer instead of a paint brush. The painting was purchased by the Luxembourg Museum in Paris, but during the German occupation of France, it was confiscated by the Nazis because Meltsner was Jewish. He painted a copy of the work in 1940, and Paul, Marcella and Van Gogh (No. 2) now hangs in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City.

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