Ben Solowey

There he studied under Hugh H. Breckenridge and Daniel Garber at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, from which he graduated in 1923.

In 1924, he took a job as ship's steward on the SS Leviathan so that he could go to London and Paris to see both old masters and more recent masterpieces of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism.

He was influenced by French artists from Delacroix and Courbet to the impressionists and more modern painters such as Cézanne, as well as the sculptor Auguste Rodin.

Of these, he sketched Ethel Barrymore, Fanny Brice, Claudette Colbert, Katharine Cornell, Marlene Dietrich, Helen Hayes, Katharine Hepburn, Walter Huston, George S. Kaufman, Mary Nash, Lily Pons, and Basil Rathbone.

[1]: 5  There, Solowey would spend the rest of his days, restoring the ancient farmhouse and painting.