Art Rosenbaum
Art Rosenbaum, 1938-2022, was born in Ogdensberg, NY. He was a painter, muralist, and illustrator, as well as a collector and performer of traditional American folk music. He earned his MFA in Painting at Columbia University and has worked in France on a Fulbright in Painting; he also held a Fulbright Senior Professorship in Germany. Among his exhibitions were the New Orleans Triennial and theCorcoran's 41st Biennial of American Painting, and his works are in many collections, including the New Orleans Museum of Art and the Columbus (GA) Museum, the Georgia Museum of Art, and the Smithsonian National Museum of American Art. A major retrospective “Weaving His Art on Golden Looms: Paintings and Drawings by Art Rosenbaum” was mounted at the Georgia Museum of Art in 2006. He has executed mural commissions at the UCLA School of Law, the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts and the Russell Special Collections Library, both at the University of Georgia. His solo show in 2000 at the Blue Mountain Gallery in New York was reviewed in Art in America.
His folk music field work in the South and Midwest has resulted in over 14 documentary recordings, several of which are on Smithsonian-Folkways. His boxed set Art of Field Recording Vol. I: Fifty Years of American Traditional Music Documented by Art Rosenbaum won a Grammy for Best Documentary Recording in 2008. He wrote and illustrated Folk Visions and Voices: Traditional Music and Song in North Georgia (1983), and Shout Because You're Free: The African American Ring Shout Tradition on the Coast of Georgia (1998), both published by the University of Georgia Press; his study, The Mary Lomax Ballad Book: America’s Great 21st Century Traditional Singer was published in 2013. A performer on a variety of folk instruments, he has appeared at numerous folk festivals both solo and with groups like the present-day Skillet Lickers, has cut three banjo/vocal LPs and CD's, and has written and illustrated three instruction books on traditional banjo styles.
He was Wheatley Professor in Fine Arts Emeritus at the Lamar Dodd School of Art, University of Georgia and in 2003 was a recipient of a Governor of Georgia's Award in the Humanities. He has collaborated on many projects with his wife, photographer and painter Margo Newmark Rosenbaum.
Three Excellences of Culture: Painting, Poetry and Music, the Work of Art Rosenbaum and Friends
Pearl Fincher Museum of Fine Arts, Spring Texas
This fall the Pearl is proud to present, in cooperation with the Linda Matney Gallery in Virginia, a colorful exhibition featuring the narrative painter Art Rosenbaum; his wife, professional photographer Margo Newmark Rosenbaum; and the friends and former students they met along the way. The exhibition opened to the public on Saturday, September 24, 2022
Art Rosenbaum painted images of Southern folklore in richly colored canvases that depict lively figures often dancing or holding musical instruments. After moving to Georgia, Art and Margo met musicians such as Ring Shouters on the Georgia coast, banjo and fiddle players in the mountains, faith-filled singers in African American churches, and old-school blues players. These musicians made their way into Art’s paintings as well as Margo’s photographs. “
A typical Rosenbaum canvas is fairly teeming with figures, many of them specific portraits, often including the artist himself,” writes painter Philip Morsberger. “Elements of landscape, of architecture, of still life (often musical instruments): all are presented in rich detail, but at the same time with bold and fearless brushwork. There is no dead space in a Rosenbaum painting. Something is going on everywhere one looks.”
Rosenbaum’s paintings are in many collections, including the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Georgia Museum of Art, and the Smithsonian National Museum of American Art. He also plays a variety of folk instruments, and his music will be part of the exhibition at the Pearl. Rosenbaum’s boxed set, Art of Field Recording Vol. 1: Fifty Years of American Traditional Music Documented by Art Rosenbaum won a Grammy for Best Documentary Recording in 2008.
Margo Newmark Rosenbaum has collaborated with Art over many years in documenting American traditional music. Her photographs have been published in several books by Art Rosenbaum as well as the New York Times, Newsweek, and The Old-Time Herald. Margo’s work has been widely exhibited and is part of many private collections.
Three Excellences of Culture will be featured in both the Main Gallery and the Cole Gallery at the Pearl Fincher Museum of Fine Arts this fall. Among the other artists whose work will be included are Howard Finster, who designed album covers for R.E.M. and the B-52’s; Len Jenkin, whose work includes scripts for Family, The Incredible Hulk, and the novel New Jerusalem; Michael Paxton, Bonnie Loggins, Dennis Harper, Kent Knowles, Scott Belville, Dilmus Hall. Zuzka Vaclavik, and Teddy Johnson.
The exhibition opens to the public on Saturday, September 24 with a members-only preview on Friday evening. Museum hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and admission is free. Please note that the Pearl will be closed September 4 – 23 for the exhibition change.
For more information, visit pearlmfa.org.