Untitled abstraction

Wilfrid M. Zogbaum

Wilfrid Zogbaum's career as an artist was just taking off in the late 1930s when this lithograph was made. He had studied at the Rhode Island School of Design and Yale School of Fine Arts (now the Yale School of Art), and in 1937 he received a Guggenheim Fellowship to study in Europe in 1937, where he mingled with leading abstract artists Laszlo-Moholy Nagy and Wassily Kandinsky, among others.

That same year the Squibb Galleries in New York published a portfolio of lithographs by various American abstract artists, designed to bring the still relatively new genre to the public. "American Abstract Artists" included one of Zogbaum's untitled works, of similar size to this work; this may, in fact have been intended for the portfolio. Though he would later be primarily known for his sculpture, this early, gestural work foreshadows his style: energetic, gestural, and explorative. These works were drawn on zinc plates by the artists and printed using an offset press, they were not reproducing other existing media.

The exhibition was held between April 3 and April 17. The abstract artists represented were: Rosalind Bengelsdorf, Ilya Bolotowsky, Harry Bowden, Byron Browne, George Cavallon, A. N. Christie, Werner Drewes, Herzl Emmanuel, Balcomb Greene, Gertrude Greene, Hananiah Harari, Carl Holty, Ray Kaiser, Paul Kelpe,M. Kennedy, Ibram Lassaw, Agnes Lyall, Alice Trumbull Mason, George McNeil, George L. K. Morris, John Opper, Ralph M. Rosenborg, Louis Schanker, Charles G. Shaw, Esphyr Slobodkina, Albert Swinden, R. D. Turnbull, Vaclav Vytlaci,Frederick J. Whiteman and W. M. Zogbaum.

Wilfrid Meynell Zogbaum was born in Newport, Rhode Island in 1915. He was the son of an admiral and the grandson of Rufus Fairchild Zogbaum, an artist-illustrator who covered the Spanish-American War. As a child, Zogbaum traveled extensively in Europe and spoke French and German fluently. In high school, he spent two summers studying painting and drawing at the Rhode Island School of Design. In 1933 he enrolled for a year at the Yale School of Art and then left for to New York where he studied initially with John Sloan.

Beginning in 1935, Zogbaum attended the Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts, where he served as a class monitor. In his 1964 interview with Dorothy Seckler, Zogbaum described Hofmann as ?“the only prophet of modern art in America.” He believed, as did Hofmann, in the importance of nature within art.

In 1936, Zogbaum was a founding member of the American Abstract Artists and the following year he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to Europe. Zogbaum met Ben Nicholson, Naum Gabo, and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy in London. In Paris he met Wassily Kandinsky and developed a close friendship with Fernand Léger, a relationship that continued after the Frenchman fled to New York to escape the war. Zogbaum spent most of his fellowship year in Bavaria, where he associated with Fritz Winter and other former Bauhaus teachers. Returning to New York, Zogbaum painted independently for two years.

Zogbaum joined the U.S. Army Signal Corps in 1942 and served as a photographer. He was with the U.S. troops and recorded the liberation of the Pacific islands. During the late 1940s, he became a successful commercial photographer in New York. Zogbaum gave up his commercial career in 1948 to devote himself full time to his art. He exhibited frequently during the 1950s in group and solo exhibitions, and became well known as an Abstract artist.

In 1957 Zogbaum taught for a semester at the University of California Berkeley. This position was followed by short-term teaching posts at the University of Minnesota, Southern Illinois University, and at Pratt Institute in New York, and a return year at the University of California Berkeley in 1961?–?62.