Joseph Solman

16 Pp + 140 Color And B/W Illustrations. Green Cloth Stamped In Gilt And Red. First Edition. Would Be Near Fine In Near Fine Dust Jacket, But There Is A 1" X 1/8" Abrasion In The Lower Front Spine Edge Of Book And Dust Jacket. Inscribed By Konecky To "My Very Good Friend Bill Gropper". (From Wikipedia): Joseph Solman (1909 –2008) Was An American Painter, A Founder Of The Ten, A Group Of New York City Expressionist Painters In The 1930S. His Best Known Works Include His "Subway Gouaches" Depicting Travellers On The New York City Subway. Born In Vitebsk, Russian Empire, He Was Brought To America From The Russian Empire As A Child In 1912, Solman Was A Prodigious Draftsman And Knew, In His Earliest Teens, That He Would Be An Artist. He Went Straight From High School To The National Academy Of Design, Though He Says He Learned More By Sketching In The Subway On The Way Back From School Late At Night: People "Pose Perfectly When They're Asleep." In 1934, Solman Had His First One-Man Show, Much Influenced By The French Modern Artist Georges Rouault. Joseph Solman Was, With Mark Rothko, The Unofficial Co-Leader Of The Ten, A Group Of Expressionist Painters Including Louis Schanker, Adolph Gottlieb And Ilya Bolotowsky, Who Exhibited As The "Whitney Dissenters" At The Mercury Galleries In New York City In 1938. A Champion Of Modernism, Solman Was Elected An Editor Of Art Front Magazine When Its Other Editors, Art Historian Meyer Schapiro And Critic Harold Rosenberg, Were Still Partial To Social Realism. But Solman Never Believed In Abstraction For Abstraction's Sake. "I Have Long Discovered For Myself," Solman Has Said, "That What We Call The Subject Yields More Pattern, More Poetry, More Drama, Greater Abstract Design And Tension Than Any Shapes We May Invent." In 1964, The Times, Discussing His Well-Known Subway Gouaches (Done While Commuting To His Some-Time Job As A Racetrack Pari-Mutuel Clerk), Called Him A "Pari-Mutuel Picasso." William Gropper Was An Active Socil Artist From The Nineteen=Teens Into The 1960'S.