George Josimovich timeline
BORN: May 2, 1894 Mitroviga, Srem, Yugoslavia
DIED: September 18, 1987 Irvington, NJ[1]
MARRIED: July 7, 1925 Alma L. Wright of Denison, IA[2]
TRAINING
c.1911- c.1913 Lockwood Art School, Kalamazoo, MI[3]
1913 Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, evenings[4]
1913-1917 Graduated,[5] days with Edward J. Timmons, Elmer Forsberg, Antonin Sterba and Harry M. Walcott, 1916-1917, 1920 evenings, 1917-1920 days with Karl A. Buehr, Art Institute of Chicago
1917 Art Institute of Chicago, Charles W. Hawthorne
1919 Art Institute of Chicago, George W. Bellows[6]
1920 Art Institute of Chicago, Randall Davey
1920-1921 Chicago HullHouse, Herman Sachs[7]
ART RELATED EMPLOYMENT
1922 Dayton Museum of Art with Herman Sachs[8]
1920s-1933 Commercial lighting designer[9]
1932 Organizer, Fifty-Seventh Street Gallery, Chicago, a cooperative[10]
1933 Federal Art Project[11]
1943-1946 Solar Light Manufacturing Co., Chicago[12]
c.1946-1960, Designer, Curtis Lighting, Chicago[13]
TEACHING
1920-1921 Chicago HullHouse[14]
1922 Craft Department Head, Dayton Art Museum[15]
1943-1944 Pine Grove School, Chicago[16]
RESIDENCES
1894-1908 Yugoslavia[17]
1908-1912 Rock Springs/Cheyenne, WY[18]
1912-1917 San Jose, CA[19]
1917-1960 Chicago[20]
1937 Wheaton, IL[21]
1960-c.1964 Braintree, MA[22]
c.1964-c.1977 Pittsburgh[23]
c.1977-on Irvington, NJ
TRAVEL
1926-1927 Yugoslavia; Paris, France[24]
MEMBERSHIPS/OFFICES
Chicago No-Jury Society of Artists[25] (vice president 1929-1931, board 1930-1938)[26]; Chicago Society of Artists (vice president 1942-1943[27], 1943-1944 president, Chicago Society of Artists[28]); Renaissance Society;[29]The Ten Artists, Chicago[30]
HONORS
1919 Class Honorable Mention Painting, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
1929 Silver Medal, Chicago Society of Artists annual[31]
JURIES SERVED
Chicago Society of Artists annual 1935
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
A. C. A. Gallery, New York, Midwestern Artists 1937[32]
American Art Congress, America Fore Building 1937[33]
Art Center, Inc., NY, Ten Artists 1930
Art Center, New York City
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago and Vicinity1933, 1934, 1936, 1938, 1939, 1941, 1942, 1944, 1949, 1956
Art Institute of Chicago, American Annual 1938[34]
Art Institute of Chicago, Society for Contemporary Art[35]
Arts Club of Chicago 1921[36]
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, America’s Cool Modernism: O’Keeffe to Hopper 2018[37]
Associated American Artists Galleries, Chicago[38] 1945, 1946
Beverly Hills, CA group exhibition 1934[39]
Bryn Mawr Woman’s Club, Chicago Artists 1929
Carnegie Institute 1929[40]
Century Art Gallery, Chicago, Equity of Chicago Artists, Inaugural show 1935[41]
Chicago No-Jury Society of Artists annual[42] 1923, 1928-1931, 1934, 1936
Chicago Society of Artists annual[43] 1928-1930, 1935, 1942, 1944, 1945, 1948, 1950
Chicago Society of Artists, Six Chicago Artists 1950[44]
Contemporary New England Artists annual 1960, 1961
Davis Store Art Galleries, Chicago, 57th Street Art Colony 1931 (11/24)
Detroit Institute of Art[45]
Fifty-Seventh Street Gallery, Chicago[46]
Findlay Gallery, Chicago, Best Paintings by Chicago Modernists 1933[47]
Harding Gallery, Chicago, Chicago Artists of Foreign Birth 1933 (3/20)
Illinois Academy of Fine Arts annual 1928
Illinois Club at the Home Port, Gala Week Festival 1929
Illinois State Museum, North Mississippi Valley Artists[48] 1949, 1951, 1953-1955
Increase Robinson Studio Gallery, Chicago, Invitational 1931[49]
Jackson Park (Chicago) Art Colony, 50th Anniversary of Hyde Park annexation 1939
John P. Harding Gallery, Chicago, seven Chicago artists representing America in an international show[50]
Jordan Marsh Company, Boston, Thirty-first Annaul Exhibition – paintings by Contemporary New England Artists 1960, 1961 [51]
Kroch’s Books Store Gallery, Chicago, World's Fair Exhibit 1933 (6/17)
Marshall Field & Co. Galleries, Ten Artists 1929-1932[52]
North Shore Art League[53]
Renaissance Society, University of Chicago 1943[54]
Renaissance Society, University of Chicago, Artist Members 1948, 1949
Salons of America 1928
Saugatuck Art Association, Studio Gallery loan exhibit 1931 (August)
Society of Independent Artists 1928, 1929
Ten Chicago Artists 1929[55]-1932[56]
Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago Modern 1893-1945 2004
Toledo Museum of Art, Contemporary American Paintings 1930[57]
Vanguard Gallery, St. Louis, Exhibition of Midwestern Art[58]
ONE, TWO OR THREE MAN EXHIBITIONS
1927 Galerie d’Art Contemporain, Paris[59]
1929 Chicago Woman’s Aid Society[60]
1932 Knoedler Gallery, Chicago[61]
1932 John Reed Club, Chicago[62]
1943 Renaissance Society[63]
1944 Pokrass Gallery, Chicago: George Josimovich, Jean Crawford Adams, William Samuel Schwartz[64]
1950 Mandel Brothers Art Gallery, Chicago
2003,[65] 2004, 2005, 2006[66] Robert Henry Adams Gallery[67]
PERMANENT COLLECTIONS
Mattoon, IL High School; Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha; Krannert Art Museum
INTERESTING NOTES[68]
He said, “I paint, first of all, because I have to paint. It is a necessity with me - a most enjoyable necessity. I regard it as a most important activity of my life.”[69] Critic C. J. Bulliet said of Josimovich: “[he] is the wild man of the ‘ten’… likes raw, raucous colors at the red end of the scale… shouts through a megaphone… speaks in emphatic superlatives.”[70] In 1951 he was represented by Riccardo’s Studio Restaurant Gallery.[71] He was good friends with Eugene Deutsch.[72]
In reference to his work he stated that: “His attitude is that every canvas presents a new problem of creation, and the approach to that particular subject at hand.”[73]
[1]He was a resident of Irvington, but passed in a Newark hospital. Information courtesy of the artist’s granddaughter Ruth Josimovich.
[2]Their son, John, attended Harvard Medical School c.1955. For further information see: George Josimovich: American Purist, (Chicago: Robert Henry Adams Fine Art, Inc., 2004). The timeline in the exhibition catalog was provided by the Illinois Historical Art Project to Melissa Azzi Paradis, however credit for the timeline has been given to her, not to the IHAP.
[3]Registration card, Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, 1913.
[4]Registration card, Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, 1913.
[5]Louise James Bargelt, “Art Institute Students Given Diplomas Today,” Chicago Tribune, 6/15/1917, p.14.
[6]School records show all of the advanced students in Bellows’s class. A letter dated 3/25/1985 from Josimovich to his granddaughter Ruth states that he hadn’t intended to return to the School of the Art Institute until he learned Bellows was teaching a class there.
[7]Constance Katherine Campbell Poore, The Prophets of Modernism - Art in Chicago, 1900-1924, Master of Art Thesis, University of New Mexico, December 1994, p.73. Her information is taken from Josimovich autobiographical sketch, Archives of American Art, Josimovich papers, reel #D134.
[8]“was in charge of Craft Department… where batik wall hangings, scarves, kimonos, etc. were produced.” “George Josimovich – Biographical Sketch,” Pamphlet P-13590, Ryerson Library, Art Institute of Chicago
[9]Ruth Josimovich and George Josimovich memoirs. Op. cit., “George Josimovich – Biographical Sketch,” Art Institute of Chicago.
[10]Op. cit., “George Josimovich – Biographical Sketch,” Art Institute of Chicago.
[11]Op. cit., “George Josimovich – Biographical Sketch,” Art Institute of Chicago.
[12]Information courtesy of the artist’s granddaughter Ruth Josimovich. He was a lighting fixture designer.
[13]Information courtesy of the artist’s granddaughter Ruth Josimovich.
[14]Op. cit., Poore, p.73.
[15]Op. cit., Poore, p.73.
[16]Op. cit., “George Josimovich – Biographical Sketch,” Art Institute of Chicago.
[17]Confirmed by Ruth Josimovich.
[18]Registration card, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and op. cit., Bargelt, Chicago Tribune, 6/15/1917, p.14. Ruth Josimovich recounts, phone conversation 7/21/2020, that his father had tailoring experience and thought the military base in Rock Springs would provide work.
[19]David Lusenhop, Robert Henry Adams Gallery, Chicago, George Josimovich, “Chronology,” 2004. Ruth Josimovich recounted he worked his way on railroads to go back home to San Jose while attending school.
[20]At one time he had his studio in the Fifty-Seventh Street art colony. Fred Biesel typescript, Biesel Papers, Archives of American Art, Microfilm 1991 25, No. 4207-4209, available at the Ryerson Library, Art Institute of Chicago.
[21]He listed 212 W. Indiana Street as his address on a 1937 Art Institute of Chicago exhibition label in the Josimovich files.
[22]Confirmed by Ruth Josimovich.
[23]Letter to Jean Crawford Adams from Mrs. M. J. Sparks, 3/23/1970. The artist’s granddaughter Ruth Josimovich confirmed he lived with she and her parents in both Braintree and Pittsburgh.
[24]Ruth Josimovich recounts he had a studio in Paris and painted there. When he and his wife ran low on funds they went to visit family in Yugoslavia, then back to the U. S. Op. cit., “George Josimovich – Biographical Sketch,” Art Institute of Chicago.
[25]His caricature appeared in Ben Hecht’s Chicago Literary Times, October 1924 as illustrated by Chicagoartist Emil Armin with the quip: “George Josimovich says the World is rotten!! Blow it up with a Bomb!!!”
[26]Op. cit., “George Josimovich – Biographical Sketch,” Art Institute of Chicago.
[27]Op. cit., “George Josimovich – Biographical Sketch,” Art Institute of Chicago.
[28]Op. cit., “George Josimovich – Biographical Sketch,” Art Institute of Chicago.
[29]He exhibited in a member’s show in 1949. Op. cit., “George Josimovich – Biographical Sketch,” Art Institute of Chicago.
[30]He dropped from the group in 1933 and was replaced by Flora Schofield. “Around the Galleries: Ten Artists’ at Field’s,” Chicago Daily News, 1/7/1933, Art and Artists section, p.7.
[31]“Chicago Society of Artists,” The Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 11/19/1929, p.16. Eleanor Jewett, “American Show Limited in Scope,” Chicago Tribune, 11/24/1929, p.H5. The painting was White Pitcher and Vegetables. Marguerite B. Williams, “Artist Society Shows Cream of Local Work,” Chicago Daily News-Journal, 11/27/1929, in AIC Scrapbooks, Vol. 57, out of date sequence, p.22.
[32]“The Fine Arts,” New Masses, 6/15/1937, p.29.
[33]Op. cit., “George Josimovich – Biographical Sketch,” Art Institute of Chicago. This was the first national membership exhibit for the Chicago region.
[34]He exhibited Self Portrait, #109 in the catalog.
[35]C. J. Bulliet, “Chicago Art News,” Art Digest, Vol. 23, No. 17, 6/1/1949, p.15.
[36]Op. cit., “George Josimovich – Biographical Sketch,” Art Institute of Chicago.
[37]His Illinois Central was illustrated with a review in “America’s century of cool,” FT (Financial Times) Weekend, 2/17/2018, Arts Section, p.12.
[38]Op. cit., “George Josimovich – Biographical Sketch,” Art Institute of Chicago.
[39]Op. cit., “George Josimovich – Biographical Sketch,” Art Institute of Chicago. The show was arranged by Edward M. Gray, of Eli H. Leslie company.
[40]His painting Flounder was later accepted at the 1956 Chicago and Vicinityshow at the Art Institute. Josimovich files, Ruth Josimovich.
[41]Op. cit., “George Josimovich – Biographical Sketch,” Art Institute of Chicago.
[42]Op. cit., “George Josimovich – Biographical Sketch,” Art Institute of Chicago.
[43]Op. cit., “George Josimovich – Biographical Sketch,” Art Institute of Chicago, states his first exhibition year as 1928. See for some comments, Eleanor Jewett, “Some Modern Bits Qualify This as Art’s Fall Exhibit,” Chicago Tribune, 11/26/1929, p.45. This exhibit was held at the Stevens Hotel, and he exhibited White Pitcher and Vegetables. Exhibition label from Josimovich files.
[44]C. J. Bulliet, “Six Chicagoans,” Art Digest, Vol. 24, No. 16, 5/15/1950, p.6.
[45]An exhibition label from Josimovich files shows the painting Jossie Lee was shown, but there is no date.
[46]“Fifty-Seventh Street’s ‘Bohemia’,” Chicago Daily News, 2/25/1933, Art and Artists section, p.7. As one of the founders of the cooperative, he exhibited with them multiple times.
[47]C. J. Bulliet, in “Artless Comment,” “Sixteen Significant Chicago Painters, Chicago Daily News, 5/20/1933, Art and Artists section, p.17. His Farm Yard was chosen for this show by Bulliet.
[48]Op. cit., “George Josimovich – Biographical Sketch,” Art Institute of Chicago.
[49]The show was put on at the same time and in competition with the annual exhibit of American art at the Art Institute of Chicago. For a review see: Tom Vickerman, “Capone Got His, But Josimovich Still Baits Fate,” Chicago Evening Post, 11/3/1931, Art Section, p.8. His Nude With Mirror, was illustrated on the same page.
[50]Op. cit., “George Josimovich – Biographical Sketch,” Art Institute of Chicago.
[51]Op. cit., “George Josimovich – Biographical Sketch,” Art Institute of Chicago.
[52]His Vegetables and Mushrooms was illustrated in The Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 6/11/1929, p.7. In 1933 he dropped out of the group: “Around the Galleries,” “ ‘Ten Artists’ at Field’s,” 1/7/1933, Chicago Daily News, Art and Artists section, p.7
[53]Op. cit., “George Josimovich – Biographical Sketch,” Art Institute of Chicago.
[54]This was a small group show that also included artists Max Kahn, Eleanor Coen, Mario Ubaldi, Emmanuel Viviano, and Freeman Schoolcraft. http://www.renaissancesociety.org/exhibitions/110/george-josimovich-max-kahn-eleanor-coen-mario-ubaldi-emmanuel-viviano-and-freeman-schoolcraft/accessed 1/14/2018.
[55]Op. cit., “George Josimovich – Biographical Sketch,” Art Institute of Chicago.
[56]He dropped from the group in 1933 and was replaced by Flora Schofield. “Around the Galleries: Ten Artists’ at Field’s,” Chicago Daily News, 1/7/1933, Art and Artists section, p.7.
[57]His Flounder, which was shown at the Carnegie, was exhibited. Josimovich files, Ruth Josimovich.
[58]Op. cit., “George Josimovich – Biographical Sketch,” Art Institute of Chicago.
[59]Ruth Josimovich has an exhibition brochure confirming. The exhibit was held from 2 to 15 April in Paris. The artist also mentioned this exhibition to the organizers of his one-man show at the Chicago Woman’s Aid: “Mr. Josimovich spent the year 1927 in Paris working in his studio, and during his stay held a ‘one-man’ show at Galerie d’Art Contemporain, receiving favorable notice.” The Chicago Woman’s Aid Weekly Bulletin, Vol. XII, No. 25, 3/14/1929, p.3. [courtesy of Special Collections and University Archives Department, University of Illinois – Chicago].
from the critics
[60]Charles Victor Knox, “Still Lifes Justify Josimovich Exhibit,” The Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 2/26/1929, p.2. Op. cit., The Chicago Woman’s Aid Weekly Bulletin, 3/14/1929, p.3.
[61]“Josimovich and Moes,” ChicagoEvening Post, 1/26/1932. Art Section, p.6, and C. J. Bulliet, “Josimovich and Mose on View at Knoedler’s,” Chicago Evening Post, 2/2/1932, Art Section, p.6. His J. Z. Jacobsen is illustrated with the article. His Fish was illustrated in the 2/16 issue, p.6. Eleanor Jewett, “Chicago Art Show Opens at Institute,” Chicago Tribune, 1/28/1932, p.17.
[62]“John reed Club Gallery Opens on Michigan Avenue,” Chicago Evening Post, 9/13/1932, Art Section, p.6.
[63]Op. cit., “George Josimovich – Biographical Sketch,” Art Institute of Chicago.
[64]Art Digest, Vol. 18, 4/1/1944, p.30.
[65]The show entitled George Josimovich: Early Chicago Modernist, ran from April 11 to June 14.
[66]The show entitled George Josimovich: A Retrospective on Paper, ran from December 1 through December 22.
[67]The 2003 show was reviewed in ART news, September 2003, and was also reviewed by Alan Artner of the Chicago Tribune. The 2004 show was reviewed in Gallery Guide, Chicago/Midwest, May 2004, p.9, and his work Kerosene Lamp, was illustrated on the cover. The latter show opened 4/22/2005.
[68]Well before his works were accepted at the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago & Vicinity shows, his cubist compositions were featured in The Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 1/27/1925, p.5.
[69]J. Z. Jacobson, Art of Today. Chicago 1933, (Chicago: L. M. Stein, 1933), p.79.
[70]Op. cit., Bulliet, Chicago Evening Post, 2/2/1932, Art Section, p.6.
[71]“Who’s Where,” Art Digest, Vol. 26, 11/1/1951, p.74.
[72]Ruth Josimovich.
[73]Op. cit., The Chicago Woman’s Aid Weekly Bulletin, 3/14/1929, p.3.