Bio
(1913-1992)
Among the most expressive painters of the American Abstract Artists, Ralph Rosenborg began to study art when he received a scholarship to attend classes at the American Museum of Natural History in New York while in high school. Between 1930 and 1933 he continued his instruction with Henriette Reiss, an artist who had worked with Kandinsky. Through his association with Reiss, Rosenborg received fundamental art instruction, but he also learned about the European avant-garde. During this formative period he was exposed to art history, music and literature through the interests of his teacher. Rosenborg began to exhibit his work in the 1930s. He participated in group shows at the ACA Galleries, and in 1934 he contributed to Mayor LaGuardiaís Mile of Art at Radio City Music Hall. His first solo exhibition was held in 1935 at the Eighth Street Theater. He continued to show his work actively in and around New York throughout the 1930s and 1940s. During the 1930s Rosenborg held a variety of teaching positions and commercial art jobs. He worked for the Works Progress Administration on the Public Works of Art Project and in the Teaching, Easel, and Mural divisions. He joined ‘The Ten,” a group of abstract artists who exhibited together in 1936 and he was a founding member of the AAA. Nature was the catalyst for Rosenborg’s art, and frequently its significance can be recognized in his imagery, his palette, or in the title of his work. Although elements of modernist influences can sometimes be discerned in his work, his art remains quite personal. Rosenborg’s paintings are more expressive and intuitive, and while he was committed to abstraction he did not pursue it as dogmatically as some of his fellow AAA members.