Would You Trust Your Tresses to Just Anyone?

Of course not! Give your hairstylist or barber a big thank-you today, Hairstylist Appreciation Day.

Or else, you might end up in a suspicious beauty parlor such as this one, painted by Hananiah Harari in 1937. Ilya Bolotowsky's 1934 painting, In the Barber Shop, shown below, reminds us that barbers are hairstylists, too!

Both Harari and Bolotowsky were members of the group called the American Abstract Artists.

After settling in New York in 1935, Harari became involved in the vanguard circle of the American Abstract Artists. Never a doctrinaire abstractionist, even in the early years of his career, Harari moved freely between abstraction and a lyrical expressionism that incorporated figurative elements.

Ilya Bolotowsky was not only a founding member of the American Abstract Artists, but also one of the forces behind its programs and exhibitions.

Source: Virginia M. Mecklenburg. The Patricia and Phillip Frost Collection: American Abstraction 1930–1945 (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press for the National Museum of American Art, 1989).

Pictured top: Hananiah Harari, 1912–2000, The Beauty Parlor, 1937, oil, 32 x 26 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Patricia and Phillip Frost.

Pictured bottom: Ilya Bolotowksy, 1907 Russia–1981 USA, In the Barber Shop, about 1934, oil, 23 7/8 x 30 1/8 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor.