Ira Moskowitz Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Ira Moskowitz, descendant of a long rabbinical line, was born in Poland and went with his family to Prague, Czechoslovakia, in 1914. The family remained there until 1927, and young Moskowitz received his first education in Prague's schools. Soon after, his family moved to New York City, and in 1927 Moskowitz became the pupil of Henry Wickey at the Art Students League, having finally resolved his conflict between a passion for drawing and a desire to follow the rabbinical profession of his forefathers. Between 1935 and 1938, he traveled to Israel and to Europe where he studied the works of the old masters, an interest derived from his first teacher and one that eventually led to his active collaboration in 1954 on the four-volume series, "Great Drawings of All Time." In 1939, Moskowitz made his first trip to Mexico, and stayed for six months. In 1943 he received a Guggenheim Fellowship and moved to New Mexico, where he remained for seven years drawing the Indians and becoming an active member of the Taos-Sante Fe artists group. It was in New York, as a student of Harry Wickey and Jerome Meyers at the Art Students League ( 1928 -32), that Moskowitz honed his talents as an artist. In the mid-to-late 1930s in Mexico, Ira was drawn to the traditions of the native peoples; in Israel, he was absorbed with the religious ceremonies of the Hasidic Jews. The prints and drawings Moskowitz created in Mexico in 1941 earned him a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1943. In 1944, Ira and his wife, the artist Anna Barry moved to Taos, New Mexico. Moskowitz was entranced by New Mexico's light, landscapes, and cultures. By the time Ira arrived there, the region had already attracted Georgia O'Keeffe, Robert Henri, and Leon Gaspard...