Artist

John Graham

born Kiev, Russia (now Kyiv, Ukraine) 1886-died London, England 1961
Also known as
  • John D. Graham
  • Ivan G. Dombrowski
  • Ivan Dabrowski
  • Ivan Gratianovich Dombrowski
  • John D. Dombrowski
  • Ivan Dombrowski
Born
Kiev, Russia
Died
London, England
Active in
  • New York, New York, United States
Biography

A painter, writer and collector, John Graham was born Ivan Dabrowsky in Kiev. He earned a law degree, served as a czarist cavalry officer, was imprisoned during the 1917 revolution but escaped first to Paris and then, in 1921, to New York. At the Art Students League, he studied with John Sloan and became the center of a circle that included Willem de Kooning, Stuart Davis, Jacob Kainen and Arshile Gorky. He introduced Lee Krasner to Jackson Pollock, gave Pollock his first significant exhibition, and suggested to David Smith that he concentrate on sculpture instead of painting. A Renaissance man with an encyclopedic knowledge of art history, he also was a mystic, an eccentric, an intellectual, an aristocrat, a skilled practitioner of yoga, a noted connoisseur and a linguist who spoke twelve languages. He lionized Picasso and, by influencing his younger American colleagues, Graham became one of the principal channels of modernist influence. By the late 1930s, however, he had turned his back on the movement he had helped to foster.

"Recent Acquisition." National Museum of American Art Calendar of Events (Washington, D.C.: National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, October 1983)

Works by this artist (6 items)

Benjamin Trott, John Cleves Short, 19th century, watercolor on ivory, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Mary Elizabeth Spencer, 1999.27.48
John Cleves Short
Date19th century
watercolor on ivory
Not on view
Benjamin Trott, Anne Hume Shippen, ca. 1796, watercolor on ivory, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Natalie Brooks Sears Shippen and William Brush Shippen, 1999.87.1
Anne Hume Shippen
Dateca. 1796
watercolor on ivory
Not on view
Benjamin Trott, Jane Stone, ca. 1805, watercolor on ivory, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Catherine Walden Myer Fund, 1934.11.1
Jane Stone
Dateca. 1805
watercolor on ivory
Not on view
Benjamin Trott, Portrait of a Gentleman with Initials J. B., ca. 1795, watercolor on ivory, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Catherine Walden Myer Fund, 1954.6.4
Portrait of a Gentleman with Initials J. B.
Dateca. 1795
watercolor on ivory
Not on view