Harry Holtzman

At the close of this meeting, Burgoyne Diller, a Hofmann protégé, taken by Holtzman’s independence of mind, introduced himself, beginning an important lasting relationship.

(1)(5)(8)(9) In this period and working directly from the nude Harry Holtzman produced a wide corpus of drawings that reveals a progressive evolution towards abstraction, expressing his clearly understanding of the Cézanne's lesson.

Despite a language barrier and an age difference of forty years, the two men became good friends during the four months of Holtzman’s stay in Paris.

Although he opposed the group’s emphasis on exhibitions, and the attempts of certain influential members to exclude all but “pure-abstractionists”, Holtzman maintained an active role for several years, serving as secretary in 1938 and again in 1940 and arranged for the three-week AAA exhibition and its educational component at the American Art Today Building of the New York World’s Fair in 1940, directed by Holger Cahill.

(1)(2) Of a painting construction (Sculpture 1941) by Harry Holtzman now in the collection of the Yale University Art Gallery, Piet Mondrian commented: “In the present three dimensional works of H.H.

In this way the painting more literally annihilates the three dimensional volume.” (letter to Harry Holtzman 6 1 1942 cited by Daniel Abadie in the catalogue 'Paris New York Paris', Paris Musee National d'Art Moderne Centre Georges Pompidou 1977) (2)(4) The piece, included in the "Spring Salon for Young Artists" (18 May - 26 June 1943) at the Art of This Century gallery in New York, was also shown in the Maya Deren's film "Witch's Cradle" filmed at the AoTC during the August 1943.

Troy Holtzman's sculptures are akin to works by European and American artists who sought to apply Mondrian's principle of Neoplasticism into the three dimensions.

The Museum of Modern Art of New York included in 1962 some of his photographs of Le Corbusier's Villa Shodhan in the circulating exhibition: The Twentieth Century House.

(1) The evolution of the artistic research of Harry Holtzman of these decades led him to illustrate semanticim's theory of the interrelation of symbolization and perception in some of his works.

The collaboration aims at sharing, editing and exhibiting new historical materials related and connected to the world of abstract art of the seminal period of the 1930s and 1940s in Europe and in the US.

For this reason in this first show will be present also the works of other European protagonists of the time like Jean Hélion, Cesar Domela, and Ben Nicholson.

[6] [7] [8] In 2014 the Mondrian-edition-project of the RKD - Netherlands Institute for Art History encompasses the scientific, multi-lingual edition of all the correspondence and theoretical and literary writings by the Dutch artist Piet Mondrian (1872–1944).

Although I have no direct knowledge, early photos and self-portraits of Holtzman show him as somewhat romantic in appearance, then dapper, energetic, proud and lively.

Mondrian was among the first in Europe to write about the importance to modern culture of black American jazz and its dances, which he thoroughly enjoyed until the end of his life.