PAUL BRACH [1924 - 2007]
artist biography
Paul Brach was born in New York City and lived in Brooklyn until he was 14. He attended the Brooklyn Ethical Culture School. Paul stated that “Ethical Culture was like Unitarianism for the children of Jewish socialists.” He only remembered Miss Mishkan, of all of his teachers, encouraging him to make art. At 7 or 8 years old he started riding horses, which remained an important part of his entire life. When he was 12, Paul wanted to be either a jockey or an artist.
At 14, Paul’s family moved to Riverdale where he attended the Fieldston School, the high school of the Ethical Culture Society. By then it was clear to him that he would be an artist. He also continued riding. In the Spring and Fall Paul rode show jumpers, and, for several summers, he was a cowboy on a ranch in Arizona. The head of the art department at Fieldston was Victor D’amico, who was also the head of education at the Museum of Modern Art. When it came time for Paul to pick a college, he consulted D’amico, who had visited colleges and art schools all over the country, and was most impressed by the University of Iowa. Paul Brach chose Iowa.
At Iowa he took the foundation art courses and in his second year, he studied painting with Grant Wood. After the first semester of my sophomore year, Paul was drafted in the army. He did well on the general classification test and was offered a chance to study Japanese or go to Military Intelligence (which he considered an oxymoron) Officers Training and other exotic options. Paul chose the First Cavalry Division. After four months on horses, he was transferred to camouflage school, ending up in England where he taught the soldiers of the First Division how to hide from the Germans. Once the Luftwaffe was beaten, they no longer needed camouflage, and by VE day Paul was in Pilsen, Czechoslovakia, just in time to keep the S.S. from blowing up the Pilsner Urquel brewery.
Paul headed home, and back to Iowa on the GI bill. There he met Miriam Schapiro, who was about to enter graduate school. Mimi (to her friends) became a teaching assistant to Maurice Lasansky, an Argentine print maker, who was the most inspiring member of the art faculty. Paul majored in printmaking to work with Lasansky and to be near Mimi. Paul married Miriam Schapiro in 1946.
They graduated in 1950 and Paul got a teaching job at the University of Missouri. After the first year they went back to New York for the summer. They both worked in Hayter’s Studio 17 on 8th Street in the village. They met Joan Mitchell, Mike Goldberg, Larry Rivers and other artists of their generation and decided to live in the city after the next school year in Missouri. When they returned to the city they entered the New York art world, meeting artist friends at the Cedar Bar and “The Club”.
The 50’s and early 60’s were a great time to be in New York. Paul was active in “The Club” and showed in the annuals at the Stable Gallery. During the summer of 1955, He and Miriam shared Leo and Ileana Castelli’s house in East Hampton. Paul helped Leo plan his gallery, and when it opened in 1957, he was one of the first artists to exhibit there.
In the early 60’s Paul left Leo’s gallery and had two shows at the Cordier & Eckstrom Gallery. In addition to selling his work, Paul had a series of part-time teaching jobs at the New School, Cooper Union, The Parsons School of Design and Cornell’s New York City Program.
In 1967, Paul was offered the chair of a new art department at the University of California at San Diego. After two years at UCSD, he became the founding dean of the School of Art at the California Institute of the Arts. Cal Arts quickly became one of the best art schools in the country.
Paul and Miriam returned to the New York Art world in 1975. Paul became the chair of the Division of the Arts of Fordham University at Lincoln Center. After three years he gave up teaching and administration and devoted himself to his painting, occasionally writing reviews for Art in America magazine. He showed first at the Lerner Heller Gallery and then at Bernice Steinbaum’s Gallery, only leaving her when she moved to Miami in 1998.
In 1998, Paul and Miriam moved permanently to their house in East Hampton. Although Paul was without a dealer until 2005, he was working well in his East Hampton studio. Elly and Len Flomenhaft, knew and loved Paul’s work. He had his first show with the Flomenhaft Gallery in 2005.
