Robert S. Neuman
| Robert S. Neuman | |
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Robert S. Neuman in 2nd studio in Central Square, 1967
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| Born |
September 9, 1926 Kellogg, Idaho |
| Died | June 20, 2015 (aged 88) |
| Occupation | Painter and printmaker |
| Years active | 1946–present |
| Website | www |
Robert Sterling Neuman (9 September, 1926 – 20 June 2015) was an American abstract painter and print maker and an art teacher.
Neuman was born and raised in the small mining town of Kellogg, Idaho, as the only child of Katherine Samuelson and Oscar Neuman. He is of German-American and Swedish descent. Neuman's passion for the arts blossomed early in his childhood. The artist's parents owned a small hardware store where drafting and painting materials were easily "borrowed" by Neuman to paint the nearby scenic Western vistas. While attending the local high school, Neuman was permitted to take the school's only art course three times at the insistence of his mother.
In 1944, Neuman graduated from high school and briefly enrolled in the University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho, to study graphic design. In 1945, he was drafted into the army where he served in the Army Air Corps at various American army bases until the end of World War II.
After Neuman was honorably discharged from the army in 1946, he relocated to Oakland, California to attend the California College of Arts and Crafts under the GI Bill. The same year he married fellow Idaho native Patricia Fedderson.
The young artist's first encounters with California's vibrant art scene were both thrilling and shocking. He would later recall that "…coming from the state of Idaho to San Francisco and… seeing Clyfford Still for the first time [and] Diebenkorn, all hanging there, was quite a shock. Here I'd been painting views of Coeur d'Alene Lake with the mountains!".
In the early 1950s Neuman received his BFA in Applied Art and his Master of Fine Arts at the California College of Fine Arts alongside classmates Nathan Oliveira and Peter Voulkos. He also studied painting with American abstract artist James Budd Dixon at the San Francisco College of Fine Arts and with German Expressionist Max Beckmann at Mills College. In 1952, Neuman was awarded the prestigious Bender Grant for his artistic contributions. After completing his graduate studies, Neuman held faculty appointments at the San Francisco College of Fine Arts and the California College of Arts and Crafts. During this time, he was also exhibiting in juried shows alongside West Coast Abstract Expressionists like Morris Graves, Robert Motherwell and Sam Francis. In 1953, Neuman was awarded the Fulbright Fellowship and traveled with his wife to Stuttgart, Germany as one of the first artists to visit the country since the end of WWII. While is Stuggart, Neuman studied under the German Expressionist painter Willi Baumeister and began his first major series of paintings, known as the Black Paintings. After he returned to the United States in 1954, Neuman and his wife relocated to the East Coast where he briefly taught at the New Paltz State Teachers College (now SUNY New Paltz) with colleagues that included Jules Olitski.
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