Study for 1939 New York World's Fair Mural, Hall of Medical Science

Ilya BolotowskyWW-1938-022620

1938·Oil on canvas·76.2 × 121.9 cm (30 × 48 in.)

<p>Ilya Bolotowsky produced this abstract painting in preparation for a large-scale mural that was installed in the Hall of Medical Science at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. With its play of color and array of straight lines and gently curving forms, the work reflects the artist’s desire to create balanced, harmonious compositions. A founding member of the American Abstract Artists group in 1936, Bolotowsky and other leading artists promoted the value of nonobjective painting, including for public spaces. Fair organizers positioned the mural, along with three others by his peers, above the entryways to offer visual relief from the dense, scientific technical displays on view in the hall.</p>

Catalogue

Year: 1938
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 76.2 × 121.9 cm (30 × 48 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Ilya Bolotowsky

Artist

Ilya Bolotowsky

Painting

Ilya Bolotowsky was a Russian-born abstract painter and sculptor who worked predominantly in geometric abstraction and neoplasticism from the 1930s onward. He developed a rigorous vocabulary of primary colors, straight lines, and rectangular forms influenced by Mondrian and the De Stijl movement. Bolotowsky lived and worked in New York from 1923, becoming a founding member of the American Abstract Artists group and a key figure in establishing geometric abstraction in postwar America. His paintings and wall-sized murals reduced composition to essential relationships between color and form, executed with technical precision across canvas, panel, and architectural commissions.

Saint Petersburg, Russia

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