Ralph Rosenborg

Art Brokerage: Ralph Rosenborg American Abstract Expressionist Artist: b. 1913-1992. Working amid a critical period in the rise of American modernism, Ralph Rosenborg was a leading contributor to the stylistic development and acceptance of abstract expressionism. A New Yorker until the last few months of life, he was born in Brooklyn in 1913 to Swedish immigrants. In his youth he sketched scenes of the Long Island countryside while his mother worked as a domestic cook. During high school Rosenborg began training in art seriously through the School Art League at the American Museum of Natural History. He went on to study privately from 1930 to 1933 with Henriette Reiss, an associate of Kandinsky. His teacher’s insights into European culture prompted Rosenborg to explore avant-garde developments, causing him to abandon his academic style to explore his interests in gesture and abstraction. While delving into modernism despite the stigma applied to American abstraction at the time, Rosenborg‘s skills were put to use in both the Public Works of Art Project and the Teaching, Easel, and Mural divisions of the Works Progress Administration. While in the Mural division he worked alongside Arshile Gorky, and was in the company of modernists such as Ad Reinhardt, William Baziotes, and Joseph Stella in the Easel division. After his experience teaching within the WPA, Rosenborg became part of the original faculty at the Brooklyn Museum School, and held positions at New York’s Public Schools 9, 43, and 72, as well as the University of Wyoming and University of North Carolina. Listings wanted.