John Begg, 1903

Brutalist Nude Study Pastel Painting by John Begg

circa 1950

John Alfred Begg was born in New Smyrna Beach, Florida on June 23, 1903. He studied art at Columbia University (BS), with Arthur Wesley Dow, with Charles Martin, and studied sculpture with Jose De Creeft and Ossip Zadkine. He was a member of the American Institute of Graphic Arts, the Typophiles, and the Yonkers Art Association (chairman from 1972-1973). He worked as an art editor and book designer at the American Book Company, New York 1932-1937, as Art Director at Oxford University Press, New York 1939-1968, and as vice-president 1960-1968, as an art director at Art In America 1957-1959 where he won the Readerscope Award in 1945 for a bronze work. He also taught art and lectured on basic design at New York University from 1950 to 1958. He exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum 1935, 1937; at the Wakefield Gallery 1942, 1943, 1945; the Nierendorf Gallery 1945; at the Buchholz Gallery 1943, 1945; at the Whitney Museum of American Art 1945, 1950; at the Worcester Art Museum 1948; and at the Hudson River Museum 1962, 1967. Begg won first prize for sculptor at the Yonkers Art Association 1958, 1959, 1964, and the purchase prize award in 1970, and won first prize for sculpture at the Greenburgh Arts Cultural Committee 1971. John Begg's work is represented at the Indiana Museum of Modern Art, the Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover Massachusetts, the Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, New York, and the New York Public Library. John Alfred Begg died in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York in December of 1974.