Harry Gottlieb

Harry Gottlieb was a Romanian-born, American artist. His family immigrated to the United States in 1907, where they settled in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He studied at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts from 1915 to 1917, then served a brief stint in the military as an illustrator. Following his exit, he moved to New York City, where he worked as an artist and designer for the Provincetown Theatre Company.

Gottlieb is perhaps best noted for his work in the silkscreen medium, which he helped pioneer as a fine art medium under the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in the 1930s and 40s. He was also a member of the Artists Union and American Artists' Congress. His support and sympathy for communism led to a dramatic decline in his salability during the McCarthy era, but by the end of the 1950s his work was once again being exhibited across the country.

Gottlieb had a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum in 1928 and received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1931. He was involved in numerous group shows throughout the country at places such as the Carnegie International Exhibition, Art Institute of Chicago, Whitney Museum, Pennsylvania Academy and the Minneapolis Art Institute.

His work can be found it the collections of the Whitney Museum, NY; Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; Museum of Modern Art, NY; Smithsonian Institute, Washington D.C.; National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; Library of Congress, Washington D.C.; Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA; and others.