Rifka Angel

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Artist Details

  • Rifka
  • Angelovitch
  • Rifka Angelovitch Rifka Douthat
  • Angel
  • Milton Warren Douthat: artist, naval architect They met at the Art Students League, married soon after her first marriage ended.
  • George Brodsky (1901-1999); married for a few months in 1929
  • 1930: Blossom Margaret Douthat
  • September 16, 1899
  • Calvaria, Russia
  • 1988
  • New York City
  • Russian Jew
  • to 1912:  Russia

    1914-1927: New York New York

    1928 - 1935: Chicago, Illinois

    1933: 1207 N. State St., Chicago, Illinois

    1935: New York, New York

    1940: Honolulu, Hawaii

    about 1942-1946: Kansas City, Missouri

    1946 and later: -MacDougal St., New York, New York

    1948: Provincetown, Massachusetts
  • Chicago, Illinois

    New York, New York
  • Mixed Media, Painter-Acrylic, Watercolorist
  • about 1924-1926: Art Students League, New York, New York with Boardman Robinson
    1927-1929: Moscow Art Academy, Moscow, Russia with David Sternberg and others
    1929: Paris (met Marc Chagall there)
  • Paris
  • Cityscapes Figure Floral still life Genre self-portraits
  • 1922-1929: No-Jury Society of Artists, Chicago, Illinois

    1926: Opportunity Gallery (gouaches)

    circa 1929: Moscow Museum, Moscow, Russia

    1930: The Ten, Marshall Field Gallery, Chicago, Illinois

    1930: Knoedler Galleries, New York, New York (solo; works from Russia and Paris)

    1931: Knoedler Galleries, New York, New York (solo; many paintings of her daughter)

    1932-1933: Increase Robinson Gallery, Chicago, Illinois

    1933: Annual Exhibition of Works by Chicago and Vicinity Artists, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois

    1933-1934: Paintings and Sculptures from 16 American Cities, Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York - Art Appreciation

    1933, 1934: A Century of Progress Exhibition of Paintings & Sculpture, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois

    1934: Breckenridge Gallery, Chicago, Illinois

    1936: Carl Fischer Gallery

    1937-1938: Findlay Galleries, New York, New York

    1939: New York World's Fair, New York, New York

    1941: Honolulu Academy of Fine Arts, Honolulu, Hawaii

    1943: Kansas City, Missouri (twice)

    1949: ACA Gallery, New York, New York

    1954: Van Diemen Lilienfeld Galleries, New York, New York, (30-year retrospective)

    1959: Roland de Aenlle Gallery (solo)

    1964: Park Avenue Gallery, New York, New York (40-year retrospective)

    1970s: Charleston Renaissance Gallery

    2008: Responses of the Innocent: American Jewish Artists and the Holocaust, The Holocaust Museum, Los Angeles, California

    2013: They Seek a City: Chicago and the Art of Migration, 1910-1950, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois

    The Jayson Gallery

    The Jewish Museum, New York, New York

    Waddington Gallery
  • Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois: Cat and A Sensitive Young Woman

    Bernard Friedman Collection, Chicago, Illinois

    Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC: Rifka Telling a Story

    Vanderpoel Collection, Beverly, Illinois

    The Wood Art Gallery, Montpelier, Vermont: Canas in New York, 1937, oil
  • https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5594060be4b03822e68a2635/t/5ca666006e9a7f1ac0b36128/1554408961705/Rifka+Angel+Monograph+2005.pdf   monograph by Richard Frumess on the life and work of Rifka Angel, which accompanied an exhibit of her work at the Gallery at R&F Handmade Paints in 2005
  • 1936: American Artists Congress

    Chicago Artists Society

    Chicago No-Jury Society of Artists
  • 1933: Chicago Woman's Club Prize, Annual Exhibition of Works by Chicago and Vicinity Artists, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois

    1934: Chicago Society of Artists Silver Medal, Annual Exhibition of Works by Chicago and Vicinity Artists, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois - Harvest
  • correspondence in Rhys Caparn Papers at Syracuse University correspondence in Judson Crews papers at Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas correspondence in Sherwood Anderson Papers at The Newberry, Chicago, Illinois
  • Bernard Friedman Collection information and images

    Biographical article by C.J. Bulliet

    Biographical article by Ita Aber

    Catalog of Richard Furmess exhibit, 2005
  • Angel was home schooled as a child. Her father fled religious persecution and settled in New York, where she joined him in 1914; a sister and brother who refused to leave Russia later perished during the Holocaust.

    Her father was artistically talented, sketching in his spare time, and he encouraged Rifka to do the same, but she was 25 before she took up art seriously.  She later said "her desire to create art was born out of the turmoil of her early life and her need to find peace of mind."

    While a student of Boardman Robinson at the Art Students League of New York, she was especially inspired by fellow students John Sloan, Ernest Fiene, Emil Ganso, Ben Shahn, Max Kuhn and Alfred Maurer.  She posed for Kuhn in the 1920s, and Ganso recommended her to Erhard Weyhe who selected several of her gouaches for his Weyhe Gallery. But Robinson encouraged her to quit school and focus on her spontaneous style.

    Her first husband, George Brodsky, encouraged her to try watercolor painting.  She showed some of her works to Sloan, who used his influence to get her work into some exhibitions.

    In 1927, Angel returned to Russia for two years to visit a sister. While studying there, she was influenced by the styles of Matisse and Cezanne.  On the way home she spent time in Paris, visiting museums and sketching.

    Angel was one of the first artists in the United States to use a true encaustic technique, mixing beeswax with pigment in muffin tins and fusing according to a formula developed by her husband.

    She was part of the Easel Division of the Illinois Federal Art Project.