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Nathaniel Jacobson

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American painter This article is about the artist. For the mathematician, see Nathan Jacobson.
"The Survivors" by Nathaniel Jacobson, polymer on canvas, 1957

Nathaniel J. Jacobson (1916–1996) was an American artist, educator and color theorist based in Boston. He began his studies Museum of Fine Arts School, followed by the Massachusetts School of Art. After graduating in 1938, Jacobson enrolled in Yale University's School of the Fine Arts, receiving his BFA in 1941. Jacobson enlisted in the army in 1943 and after serving, the themes of his paintings turned towards his experience in Europe during World War II.

Jacobson found early success as a painter when his paintings were exhibited at the Carnegie Institute in 1941 as part of its exhibition "Directions in American Painting." Subsequently, his work was shown in New York at the Macbeth Gallery and the Gallery of Modern Art as well as The Arts Club of Chicago and Today's Art Gallery in Boston.

As a student of Anna Hathaway, a follower of Albert Munsell, he developed his interest in color theory. In 1975 Jacobson published a popular middle school and high school art textbook, The Sense of Color. Jacobson went on to work as a research associate at MIT, studying computer modeling of color combinations and exploring the human response to color. In 2007, Jacobson was the subject of a retrospective exhibit "Color Demands a Response" at Hebrew College in Boston.

In 1956 Jacobson travelled to Israel. The light and color he witnessed there transformed his work. He wrote, "Israel opened up ideas of color and light to me. There I found the extraordinary challenge of the brilliant light and how I could fit that into paint. My response to the light of Israel, and especially to the Negev, required a renovation of my palette. The light was abstract. The truth of it was the brilliance, and the fact that there was color only in the shadows."

Major exhibitions in Jerusalem, New York City and Boston followed. In 1958, he had solo shows at the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts, and the Jewish Museum in New York City. Dorothy Adlow reviewed DeCordova exhibit for The Christian Science Monitor: "These pictures of Israel express almost spectacularly the painter's reaction to the country and the people.... Sometimes the colors run to a ravishing brilliance.... Here is a genuinely exalted communication."

References

  1. Swartz, Sarah Silberstein (Winter 2008). "Color Demands a Response: The Art of Nathaniel J. Jacobson". Hebrew College Today. 22 (1): 9–10, 34, 43.
  2. Bookbinder, Judith Arlene (2005). Boston Modern: Figurative Expressionism as Alternative Modernism. New Hampshire. p. 317. ISBN 978-1584654889.
  3. "SCHOOL OF ART HAS GRADUATION: Exhibit of Students' Work to Be Continued Today". Daily Boston Globe. p. 23. ProQuest 820581949. Retrieved January 19, 2022.
  4. "Two Yale Students Get Painting Honors". The New York Times. October 14, 1941. Retrieved January 13, 2022.
  5. Jacobson, Nathaniel J. (1941). Distortion of Form in Modern Painting. B.F.A. New Haven, CT.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  6. Jewell, Edward Alden (October 26, 1941). "Carnegie: Work by Americans (Includes image of "The Bread of Affliction" painting)". The New York Times. p. 199. Retrieved January 13, 2022.
  7. Jewell, Edward Alden (November 4, 1941). "At The Modern". The New York Times. p. 30. Retrieved January 13, 2022.
  8. Philpott, A.J. (January 21, 1945). "This Week in the Art World: Jacobson Exhibition a Surprise". Daily Boston Globe. p. 20. ProQuest 839854267. Retrieved January 19, 2022.
  9. Jacobson, Nathaniel J. (1975). The sense of color : a portfolio in visuals. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold. ISBN 0442240821.
  10. Jacobson, N and, Bender, W. (1996). "Color as a determined communication". IBM Systems Journal. 35, NOS 3&4 (3.4): 526–538. doi:10.1147/sj.353.0526.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  11. ^ Nathaniel Jacobson: Color Demands a Response (exhibition catalog). Boston, MA: Hebrew College. 2007.
  12. "Exhibition list: "The land of Israel: Paintings by Nathaniel Jacobson. March 9-April 6, 1958."" (PDF). The Trustees / Decordova Museum. Retrieved January 13, 2022.
  13. "LOCAL GALLERIES LIST MANY SHOWS: Art of Past and Present Is Among Week's Group and One-Man Exhibitions". The New York Times. November 9, 1958. p. 125. Retrieved January 13, 2022.
  14. Adlow, Dorothy (March 14, 1958). "Landscapes by Haseltine; Israel Scenes by Jacobson: Exhibition in Lincoln". The Christian Science Monitor. p. 9. ProQuest 509716757. Retrieved January 18, 2022.
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