Jack Rabinowitz

A Lifetime in Art

When Abstract Expressionism first
exploded on the Manhattan scene just
after World War II, New York became,
overnight, the art capital of the world.
Some of the artists of the era became
superstars in their own lifetime, others
had to wait for their time to come as
society accepted them into the same
pantheon.

There was de Kooning, Kline,
Motherwell and the rest of the action
Painting bunch, followed by
luminaries Robert Rauschenberg
and Roy Lichtenstein, these to be
followed by Hard Egeists Kenneth
Noland and Ellsworth Kelly and
into the megastars like Jackson Pollock,
Andy Warhol and Keith Harig. One such superstar in waiting was, "rugged individualist" Jack Rabinowitz, né Jacob Arnold Rabinowitz in 1925.

During his lifetime, studying and creating were his passions and he did so at the National Academy of Design in New York, at the Art Students' League, and the fabled experimental - art haven, Black Mountain College, from which Rabinowitz earned his BFA; devouring museums in New York, Rome and Paris; teaching art, to name a few institutions he loquaciously, dedicatedly graced in his lifetime, New York University, the Five Towns Music and Art Foundation of Nassau, Long Island, and Hunter College in New York. He loved making art, making it with a passion matched by few others of his time, or probably anytime.

Rabinowitz was a vital part of the 10th Street co-op gallery scene of the 50's, showing at the Camino (other members of which were Elaine de Kooning and Leon Polk Smith) and the Brata (fellow co-opers here included Al Held and Ronal Bladen.) (CONTINUE)