dieser beitrag wurde verfasst in: englisch (eng/en)
name: Ribak
vorname: Louis Leon
wikidata-repräsentation: Q6687654
biografische angaben: Born in the Lithuanian province of Grodno Gubernia in 1902. When he was ten, he immigrated with his family to New York City. In 1922 he attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.
In 1923 Ribak moved back to New York and studied with John Sloan at the Art Students League and at the Educational Alliance. Sloan's influence guided Ribak's development. As an editor for the radical periodical, New Masses, Sloan encouraged Ribak to illustrate for the publication. In 1929, Ribak become a founding member of the John Reed Club, a left-wing group closely associated with New Masses.
Ribak's work during the 1930s and early 1940s is dominated by social realism. “Ribak roamed the streets of New York for inspiration… also often depicting coal miners… Labor – and the ravages done by the absence of labor – as well as simple street scenes, training camps for boxers, and vicious attacks by the police and the National Guard against striking workers, were his subjects.”(1) Manhattan Rooftops is a colorful street scene which portrays a joy uncharacteristic of Ribak’s cityscapes.
In the early 1930s Ribak had several one-man exhibitions at the A.C.A Gallery and others. In 1933, he received attention from critics including the New York Sun for his painting, "Striking Farmers," and that same year he assisted Diego Rivera on the mural for the lobby of Rockefeller Center. Two years later Ribak worked for the Works Progress Administration (WPA) as a muralist. Ribak participated annually in the Whitney Museum's Exhibition of Contemporary American Art from its inception in 1932 until he left New York in 1944.
Louis Ribak met fellow artist Beatrice Mandelman at a dance sponsored by the Artists Union and in 1942 they married. He was drafted for military service, but released 2 years later due to asthma. In 1944 the couple traveled west to visit John Sloan in Santa Fe and shortly after, moved to Taos. The move was prompted in part by the need for a healthier climate for Ribak but also because they had become dissatisfied with the New York scene due to "dissention between Social Realists and Abstract Expressionists." In New Mexico Ribak shifted his focus to full abstraction saying that as an artist he was “not truly anything. I am against everything. Damned abstract[ionists], realists, illustrators…”
In 1947, the Ribaks’ opened and instructed at the Taos Valley Art School. Ribak offered no ideology to his students, arguing that taking any single approach would lead to academicism. In 1959, the couple opened the Gallery Ribak in their home. The gallery showed their own work as well as that of other Taos artists.