MICHAEL GOLDBERG (1924-2008) Untitled, 1966, Oil, oil stick, and collage on board, Signed lower right, dated verso, 17.5” x 15”

MICHAEL GOLDBERG

American
(1924 – 2008)

Michael Goldberg defies classification. Often described as a second generation Abstract Expressionist; the Bronx-born artist began carving out his place in the canon when he started painting in 1939 at the age of fifteen. He had finished high school a year earlier and enrolled in classes at City College. His foray into collegiate life was short lived, however. More interested in the Jazz clubs near campus, Goldberg started skipping classes and promptly dropped out. At the age of seventeen, like many of the leading artists of the time, he began studying under Hans Hofmann.

After the outbreak of World War II, Goldberg enlisted in the United States Army as a paratrooper and earned a purple heart for his service—an honor befitting of the man described by so many as immensely generous, gregarious and formidable. Upon returning to the states, Goldberg continued to study under Hofmann and participated in Leo Castelli’s groundbreaking Ninth Street Show in 1951. A regular at the Cedar Bar in New York, he was known for having involved conversations about painting and for telling epic tales from his past. Needless to say, he befriended many artists who also frequented the famed watering hole including poet Frank O’Hara who would become a lifelong friend and occasional collaborator.

For a short time, Goldberg exhibited under the name Michael Stuart, a pseudonym he quickly dropped before his first solo show at Tibor de Nagy gallery in 1953. The first of many for the artist, he had ninety-nine solo shows by 2003. In the late 1950s, as painting trends diverged and hard-edge minimalism began to rise, Goldberg remained committed to his style and continued to paint gestural, abstract works. During this period, Martha Jackson Gallery began representing him, and his work gained the widespread attention that it deserved.

In 1969, Goldberg met artist Lynn Umlauf and the couple married ten years later. Both Goldberg and Umlauf taught at the School of Visual Arts, splitting their time between New York and Tuscany. Throughout his career as an artist, Goldberg charted his own path, falling in and out of favor with critics who seemed unsure of how to categorize him, all the while remaining steadfast to his vision. In 2001, six years before his death from a heart attack, he affirmed, “Either you find that you’re behind the times or ahead of them. It doesn’t matter. What matters is your own times.”

Michael Goldberg exhibited widely during his time and his work can be found in countless private and public collections including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, The Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington D.C. and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.