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Lawrence Rothbort: son of the prominent folk artist Samuel Rothbort, was born in Brooklyn in 1920, and achieved fame for his heavily wrought expressionist canvases, earning comparison to Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gaughin. Rothbort grew up in Brooklyn. He dropped out of school at age sixteen and worked various menial jobs while studying philosophy and mysticism at night. At the age of 24, he left home for the Poconos, where he would live as a hermit for one year before finding the path he was to follow for the rest of his life. Rothbort returned home in 1945 convinced that he would become an artist. He lived with his parents in Brooklyn and worked fourteen-hour days, seven days a week, grinding his own paints and, self trained, experimented in oils watercolours, pen and ink. He developed several new techniques that would mark his work, such as the patient application of paint to the canvas with sharpened twigs, and the combination of oil painting with glass mosaic. Much of his work incorporated thousands of bits of glass, and it was not unusual for a piece to take several months for completion. Rothbort never worked from photographs, asserting that it was more important to be in direct contact with a place in order to convey feelings about the location. His painting orbit was Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx, and he often traveled with his supplies in a baby carriage. For the early part of his career, he was supported financially by his father's wood-carved sculpture. In fact, he and his father co-wrote a book titled "Out of Wood and Stone." His intricate, realistic pen and inks were compared by critics to those of the elder Bruegel. Rothbort's first showing was in 1947 at Barzansky Gallery, where he was lauded by critics as a descendant of Gaughin. In 1955, Rothbort married Marlene, with whom he had three children. They lived for a period in Florida, where he completed an enormous oil painting reminiscent of Medieval Madonnas, using her and their infant son as models. Returning to Brooklyn in 1960, Rothbort established a small gallery behind the family's store-front apartment, but he became bitter because he had little financial success. Rothbort was murdered in 1963 in his studio by a robber whom Rothbort had denied the fifteen dollars he had for grocery money. He left a pregnant widow with children ages two and six, deeply in debt. His death sparked a memorial exhibit four months later at Riverside Gallery, and a slew of newspaper articles praising the then undiscovered artist. As one critic viewing the memorial exhibit said "He was odd, inexplicable, and I think he developed an insularity you can feel in his work. He certainly turned out to be many times the artist the critics found so promising in 1947." A reviewer for the New York Post, 2/12/1964 wrote: "If some of the gallery visitors come looking for the birth of an American Van Gogh, not all of them go away disappointed." Rothbort's signature was in fact his lack of it. As he always claimed, his work was too original to have been done by anyone else. If you would like information about the artist or on upcoming special exhibitions and artist receptions, send your address to: BOI's of New Hope Art Gallery 9 W. Mechanic Street New Hope, PA 18938 215.862.8292 boisofnewhope@verizon.net | ||
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| Central Park | ||
| Oil on Board | ||
| 23 x 21.5 |
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