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Emil Holzhauer: Portrait of an Artist
This is the true story of a great artist, a determined immigrant, and an outstanding teacher. It is the story of self-discipline in the face of abuse, poverty, and bitter discrimination. It is the story of one man's passion for realizing his own artistic potential. It is the story of a starving artist, with a difference. It has a happy ending.
364 pages, Paperback
First published October 20, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 1, 2021
This book is written in the style called, "creative non fiction". I'm not quite sure what that means other than that I suppose the essential people and events in this book are true, while the actual conversations, facial expressions etc. are a product of the author's imagination, albeit, I'm sure Edwards did her utmost to maintain biographical integrity.
As she could well do since she was a neighbor of the author in his latter years.
Emil Holzhauer was a member of the "Ashcan" school of art. While it was popular at the end of the 19th century and into the early 20th century to create pretty, ornate paintings, pleasing to the eye, the Ashcan School, founded by Robert Henri, went in the opposite direction. They painted gritty scenes in the New York Bowery, the segregated shanty towns where the black community lived. They did not limit themselves to the rich and decorous, but also painted the poor and pungent.
Edwards' biography traces Holzhauer's life from his harsh upbringing by an alcoholic father and loving, but passive mother in Germany, to immigrating to New York City as a young man still in his teens who spoke no English. There he worked in factories, using his skills as an engraver, while attending Henri's school at night.
During WW's I and II, he faced severe discrimination as a German. Nevertheless, he managed to slowly over his lifetime achieve his own style and taught at different art schools, even though he himself lacked a college education.
By the time he was in his fifties, he had finally achieved national fame and his paintings have hung in the Art Institute of Chicago, New York Galleries as well as in the galleries of various colleges.
The University of Northwest Florida in Niceville, Florida has been the fortunate recipient of many of his works because that is where he settled in his old age having by this time tired of the fast paced, glitzy culture of the northeast.
Anyone interested in art and artists will enjoy this book as a source of inspiration to how one man with self-discipline and determination cut his own way through life and left the rest of us a priceless legacy.
As she could well do since she was a neighbor of the author in his latter years.
Emil Holzhauer was a member of the "Ashcan" school of art. While it was popular at the end of the 19th century and into the early 20th century to create pretty, ornate paintings, pleasing to the eye, the Ashcan School, founded by Robert Henri, went in the opposite direction. They painted gritty scenes in the New York Bowery, the segregated shanty towns where the black community lived. They did not limit themselves to the rich and decorous, but also painted the poor and pungent.
Edwards' biography traces Holzhauer's life from his harsh upbringing by an alcoholic father and loving, but passive mother in Germany, to immigrating to New York City as a young man still in his teens who spoke no English. There he worked in factories, using his skills as an engraver, while attending Henri's school at night.
During WW's I and II, he faced severe discrimination as a German. Nevertheless, he managed to slowly over his lifetime achieve his own style and taught at different art schools, even though he himself lacked a college education.
By the time he was in his fifties, he had finally achieved national fame and his paintings have hung in the Art Institute of Chicago, New York Galleries as well as in the galleries of various colleges.
The University of Northwest Florida in Niceville, Florida has been the fortunate recipient of many of his works because that is where he settled in his old age having by this time tired of the fast paced, glitzy culture of the northeast.
Anyone interested in art and artists will enjoy this book as a source of inspiration to how one man with self-discipline and determination cut his own way through life and left the rest of us a priceless legacy.
November 20, 2013
WOW! His name was unknown to me, but I know it now! What an interesting life this artist had!
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September 25, 2014Audrey Edwards (Ph.D. '79)
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews