AT THE THRESHOLD OF BRILLIANCE:
THE BRIEF BUT SPLENDID CAREER OF HAROLD J. RABINOVITZ
The Rabinovitz Project announces the publication of At the Threshold of Brilliance: The Brief but Splendid Career of Harold J. Rabinovitz, an artist biography and catalogue raisonne written and compiled by Arthur D. Hittner, an independent art historian, on the basis of eight years of exhaustive research. Rabinovitz was an important New York City artist of the late 1930s and early 1940s who met his tragic death in World War II at the threshold of a budding art career.
At the Threshold of Brilliance: The Brief but Splendid Career of Harold J. Rabinovitz is available online and in bookstores around the country. The book is published by The Rabinovitz Project, an endeavor spearheaded by the author to reintroduce the artist to art historians and art aficionados and to elicit interest in and support for a possible retrospective exhibition of the paintings, lithographs and drawings of the artist.
ABOUT HAROLD J. RABINOVITZ:
A native of Springfield, Massachusetts, Harold J. Rabinovitz (1915-1944) earned a fine arts degree from Yale in 1935, studied at the Art Students League in New York City under Yasuo Kuniyoshi (1893-1953), and rose quickly to prominence in American art circles before his burgeoning career was cut short just nine years later by his untimely death while a Japanese prisoner of war during World War II. In the brief span of six years between his college graduation and enlistment in the U.S. Army, the award-winning artist exhibited at the nation’s leading museums (including the Carnegie, Whitney, Corcoran, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and National Academy of Design) as well as the 1939 World's Fair. Although a major memorial retrospective of the artist’s work was staged in 1952, Rabinovitz, like so many of the “neglected generation” of American realist painters of the Great Depression, has since faded into relative obscurity in art historical circles. “Rabinovitz’s immense talent and potential were readily apparent,” notes the author, “when Eventide, the first major work he produced after graduating from Yale, was awarded top honors in an exhibition judged by the legendary Edward Hopper.” Aided immeasurably by the discovery of a family scrapbook, family photo albums and a treasure trove of paintings, prints and drawings hidden from public view for more than sixty years, this biography and catalogue raisonne seeks to restore the reputation and reveal once more the genius of a talented artist whose tragic wartime death ended a highly promising artistic career.
Eventide (1936) by Harold J. Rabinovitz
Print ISBN: 978-0-9989-8100-0.
Softcover (8 x 10), rev. ed., 2017
185 pp. including photos, references. Widely available.
ebook version is available exclusively from blurb.com
List Price $29.95 (print); $9.99 (ebook)