Jackson, William Henry (04 April 1843–30 June 1942), photographer and painter, was born in Keeseville, New York, the son of George Hallock Jackson, a blacksmith and carriage builder, and Harriet Maria Allen. Jackson’s academic education ended when he was about sixteen. His mother taught him to draw and paint in watercolor. She presented him with a copy of ...
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Jackson, William Henry (1843-1942), photographer and painter
Kathleen Butler
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Man Ray (1890-1976), artist and photographer
Martin R. Kalfatovic
Man Ray (27 August 1890–18 November 1976), artist and photographer, was born Emmanuel Radnitsky in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Melach Radnitsky (later Max Ray), a tailor, and Manya “Minnie” Louria (or Lourie), both Russian-Jewish immigrants. In 1897 the family moved to Brooklyn. After high school young Emmanuel was awarded a scholarship to study architecture at New York University. Deciding to pursue a career as an artist, he attended classes at the National Academy of Design and at the Art Students League. He was temperamentally unsuited to the rigors of the academic styles favored by these institutions, however, and so enrolled in the Ferrer Center, where ...
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Shahn, Ben (12 September 1898–14 March 1969), painter and graphic artist
Frances K. Pohl
Shahn, Ben (12 September 1898–14 March 1969), painter and graphic artist, was born Benjamin Shahn in Kovno (Kaunas), Lithuania, the son of Hessel Shahn, a carpenter and woodcarver, and Gittel Lieberman. Kovno was located in the area of czarist Russia known as the Pale of Settlement, where Russian Jews were legally allowed to settle. In 1906 the family was forced to flee the pogroms, government-sponsored massacres of Jews, that swept through the Pale at the turn of the century. They took refuge in the United States and settled in Brooklyn. In 1913 Shahn was taken out of school and began an apprenticeship as a lithographer at Hessenberg’s Lithography Shop in Manhattan. During the next four years he not only mastered the skill of lettering but also developed a distinctive, incised line that would become a hallmark of his later work as a painter and graphic artist. During his apprenticeship he also attended night school in order to complete his high school diploma and enrolled briefly, in November 1916, in classes at the Art Students League in New York....
