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Dr. Philip Eliasoph (born 1951, NYC) is an American art historian, critic, curator, arts advocate, and widely engaged public intellectual. Eliasoph’s expertise focuses on a resilient core of American artists who retained academic methods and applied classical painting techniques in producing socially relevant, narrative, humanist paintings. He contributed to a paradigm shift re-assessing and re-appraising a small cadre of mid-century American painters loosely allied with the ‘Magic Realist’ movement.

In his art criticism, books and teaching he analyzes and interprets the dominant forces of American art at the moment of its pivotal shift from entrenched classicism to avant-gardist modernism between 1940-1960. Most notably, he argues that ‘fine art’ was replaced by ‘high art’ with unseen consequences; socio-cultural revolutionary trends impacted the integrity and enduring qualities resulting in the ambiguous malaise and cynicism in much post-modernist expression. “We implicitly know how any contemporary artist – from Masaccio to Mapplethorpe - must reflect his/her times. But defining our age using the mirror of the arts is cause for disquieting concern, cynicism, and angst - often not salutary.”

1. Artistic / Theoretical Position

An announcement for his presentation at the Jackson Pollock-Lee Krasner House-Studio lecture series noted, “Eliasoph has been a champion of the ‘lost generation’ of realists who were swept away by the rising tide of Abstract Expressionism”. [1]

As the biographer and personal friend of Paul Cadmus (1907-1999), Robert Vickrey (1926-2009) and Colleen Browning (1918-2003), all elected members of the National Academy of Art, Eliasoph examined their laborious academic methods with special knowledge of the Renaissance inspired egg yolk tempera painting technique and 19th century drawing methods. A proponent of meaningful narrative expression, Eliasoph established a minority voice in American art history arguing against the dismissal of realist painting under the ascendency of avant-gardism, abstraction, and anti-art. “Eliasoph defends himself against the impression that he is against abstract art. ‘Avant-gardism certainly is now recognized as iconically the triumph of American painting, when American stole the show from Paris, unabashedly and with great pride in that great heroic era…artists need to embrace the art of their time.” [2]

“In his marvelous insights”, notes scholar Dr. Henry Adams, we find “one of our finest art writers, Philip Eliasoph whose words are worth reading.” [3]

2. Professional Service

Eliasoph is Professor of Art History at Fairfield University where he also founded the art history program in 1975, Fairfield’s Florence, Italy campus program in 1986, Thomas J. Walsh Art Gallery in 1991, and the Open Visions Forum town hall public lecture series in 1996. As moderator he has conducted live, unscripted interviews with Philippe de Montebello, Isabel Allende, Robert Hughes, Stephen Sondheim, William F. Buckley, Jr., Harry Belafonte, Joan Didion, Andrea Mitchell, Tim Russert, Mia Farrow, Salman Rushdie, David McCullough, Fran Lebowitz, Brian Williams, Steve Kroft, Lesley Stahl and Richard Holbrooke. A career highlight was his two-hour live interview, with two-time Academy Award winning actor Dustin Hoffman at Fairfield University, Feb 20, 2014. Reviewing his career acting in and directing over 40 films and his 1984 Broadway role as Willy Loman in Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman,” Eliasoph caught Hoffman off-guard connecting to Philip Seymour Hoffman, who played the same part on Broadway in 2012. “The most memorable moment of the evening was not jovial but tragic. When onstage interviewer Philip Eliasoph mentioned recently deceased actor Philip Seymour Hoffman…Dustin Hoffman started to cry. “I feel bad about it,” he said, “substance abuse is an illness, it’s a need to self-medicate.” [4]

Eliasoph was founding Co-President of the Town of Fairfield Arts Council in 1996, was awarded the Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award by Fairfield University’s Alumni Association in 2008. [5] He was appointed as a Commissioner for the State of Connecticut Commission for Culture & Tourism 2009, and selected to serve on the Connecticut Arts Council and Foundation in 2013, created by the State Legislature. Cited in 2013 for his innovative classroom pedagogy using current events, The New York Times features him on the ‘Success Stories’ Education web page. He was elected to and serves as an active member of the American Section of the International Association des Critiques d’Art. Serves as consulting curator for Southport Galleries, Southport, Connecticut. Elected as Trustee for the Board of Directors of the Kennedy Center, and Discovery Museum, Bridgeport; the Fairfield Museum and History Center, and is Senior Editorial Consultant to The Artist Book Foundation, based in New York City beginning in 2012. He joined the Board of Trustees of the Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts in 2014.

3. Early Life / Education

Eliasoph attended the Great Neck Public Schools. He formed and played in a folk rock group at age 12; later in high school he was lead actor in several theatrical productions, and wrote and performed in several improvisational programs. With elementary school mates, he demonstrated at the United Nations in 1961 organized by the Women’s Strike for Peace for nuclear disarmament, participated in anti-atomic testing, civil rights and anti-Vietnam war mass demonstrations in NYC and Washington, DC throughout the1960s. [6]

Influenced in the fine arts by his paternal grandmother, artist, and poet Paula Eliasoph (1895-1983), he completed a dual studio art-art history degree graduating Summa Cum Laude from Adelphi College in 1971. Awarded a full teaching fellowship at the State University of New York-Binghamton, where he studied under Kenneth C. Lindsay, who as an American G.I. in WWII was in the legendary “Monuments Men” unit. Lindsay, who assisted with the return of the ‘Bust of Nefertiti’ from a cache of Nazi-looted art, was the preeminent American scholar on Wassily Kandinsky. Between 1972 and1974 Eliasoph completed his MA thesis on avant-garde Soviet architecture analyzing architectural renderings by Konstatin Melnikov. These unpublished drawings where photocopied in 1970 from the Lenin Library by Princeton Professor Frederick Starr. Spanish architect and author Gines Garrido later cited Eliasoph’s pioneering publication of these drawings in the first monographic treatment: “Melnikov en Paris, 1925,” (Barcelona, Foundacion Caja de Arquitectos, 2011). After extensive interviews with Paul Cadmus at his Brooklyn Heights and Weston, Connecticut studio/residences, Eliasoph won the Distinguished Dissertation Award in the Humanities for his groundbreaking study: Paul Cadmus: Life and Work, completed in 1978, four years after his first one-on-one interview with Cadmus.

4. Scholarly Achievements / Published Work

A. Paul Cadmus Eliasoph’s career is noted for his wide ranging interests consistently focused by offering critical praise to artists he deems of high artistic merit but fallen from public attention. As a doctoral candidate mentored by Kandinsky scholar Kenneth C. Lindsay, he had planned to investigate the role Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) played as a non-political Commissar during the chaotic opening phase of the Soviet Union’s revolutionary era led by Bolshevik ideologues. During a chance encounter in a graduate seminar, he was intrigued the painting ‘Playground’ by Paul Cadmus. This turning point reversed Eliasoph’s scholarly direction as he shifted stylistic preferences from radical non-objectivism to highly conservative, academicism. His pioneering biographical dissertation, Paul Cadmus: Life and Work, 1979 was the first authorized work based on 100 hours of interviews with the artist conducted between 1974-1979. Gaining momentum as the first serious scholar to re-evaluate Cadmus’ position, Eliasoph was credited with a major re-discovery of a suppressed American master. He captained the first and only career retrospective celebrating the censored work of Cadmus due to its explicitly homoerotic content in 1981. [7]

Former Whitney Museum of American Art director Lloyd Goodrich, commented that Eliasoph’s exhibition was: “a much needed presentation of one of our most individual and gifted artists.” [8] With the retrospective touring five museums around the nation, Eliasoph was recognized as an early champion of Cadmus by speaking in a forthright manner about previously taboo topics. A New York Times review noted: “Dr. Eliasoph finds that ‘no other American artist has been so sincere and delicate, so realistic and romantic, so erotic and yet not exploitative about homosexuality.’ And who can gainsay him?” [9]

“The Fleet’s In!” – Recovery, Restitution Of W.P.A. Art To Public Domain: Cadmus first gained national attention with his rollicking, eyebrow-raising painting “The Fleet’s In!” (1933, U.S. Navy Art Collection). Incensed by its satirical depiction of sailors on shore leave, Secretary of the Navy Claude Swanson deemed it a “most disgraceful, sordid, disreputable, drunken brawl” [10] and had federal agents seize the painting out of the first showing of the Public Works of Art Project [nascent WPA] in April 1934. This hotly contested exhibit was the brainchild of Eleanor Roosevelt, and FDR’s cousin was Henry Latrobe Roosevelt, Assistant Secretary of the Navy. The painting was sequestered in the elite Alibi Club, on “I” street in Washington, DC, where it was installed over a smoky fireplace for over 44 years until Eliasoph threatened to sue the club. With the assistance of the Counselor for Fine Arts of the General Services Administration, and a Washington DC attorney, Eliasoph fought for the restitution of the painting back into the public domain. Producing the original receipt Cadmus was given when he turned the painting over to the PWAP for the Corcoran Gallery’s exhibit as he deposited it at the Whitney Museum in the spring of 1934, the case was irrefutable. Lincoln Kirstein explained: “As the result of a private scholar’s campaign, it has now been returned to the Naval Historical Center in Washington.” [11] Eliasoph had the privilege of showing Cadmus the newly reclaimed painting when he escorted him into his Miami University retrospective exhibition in 1981. “I never expected to see this painting again,” Cadmus publically acknowledged Eliasoph for fulfilling this dream wish in restoring “The Fleet’s In!” back into the public’s eye.

Continuing in his advocacy making challenges to artistic censorship, Eliasoph drew a parallel with the storm of controversy surrounding Robert Mapplethorpe’s ‘Perfect Moment’ exhibit at the Corcoran in 1989 bringing it to the public’s attention with a censorship battle. “As in most cases of esthetic censorship, Mr. Cadmus’s work seems mildly tame and lighthearted compared with today’s notions of sexuality as seen in magazine and music videos,” Eliasoph noted in his letter to the New York Times. [12]. Dining with Cadmus just two days before his death in December 1999, Eliasoph took the last photograph of the artist. In 2006, representing the artist’s Estate, he organized and wrote the catalogue entry for a major sale at Christie’s auctioneers in New York. In recent years, Sotheby’s, Bonham’s, Doyle, and Shannon auctioneers have called him as an expert consultant for the evaluation of other Cadmus artworks.

At a presentation at the Pollock-Krasner House in August 2009, Eliasoph spoke to his scholarly mission: “My task of the last 35 years has been a project resurrecting the corpses of interred, long forgotten realist painters” taking their defense amidst the rise of Abstract Expressionism. Despite his progressive politics and worldview as being fundamentally shaped as a “FDR New Deal socially progressive Democrat,” Eliasoph has often found himself on the conservative end of the art world’s stylistic spectrum authoring several articles and reviews for a conservative publication, “The American Arts Quarterly.” With these sympathies clearly articulated, more scholarly projects developed. Commissioned in 1985 by the New Britain Museum of American Art and the Society of Illustrators in NYC, Eliasoph authored the retrospective catalogue for Stevan Dohanos (1907-1994), the popular illustrator who published 75 covers for the Saturday Evening Post, only second to Norman Rockwell’s record.

B. Robert Vickrey (1926-1999) Recognizing the trend in America art which was skewing dramatically towards non-representational art in the post-WWII era, Eliasoph championed technically proficient, representational painting. Researching Cadmus at the now defunct Midtown Galleries on East 57th Street, he discovered the egg yolk tempera master Robert Vickrey. Vickrey enjoyed Eliasoph’s outspoken support in a mutually rewarding friendship. Along with the artist’s son, Scott Vickrey and Richard Camp, Eliasoph co-produced and co-directed a sensitive film portrait: “Robert Vickrey: Lyrical Realist”, 1986. Broadcast on public television, it won the 1986 CINE Golden Eagle for excellence in documentary film production. Working with the artist’s gallerist, Bill Meek of the Harmon-Meek Gallery of Naples, Florida, Eliasoph curated and authored numerous Vickrey exhibitions throughout the USA between 1981 and 2009. Reviewing his full length biographical study, “Robert Vickrey: The Magic of Realism,” [Hudson Hills Press, 2009], Gail Leggio wrote: “Eliasoph based his monograph on extensive research and interviews with the painter. He does a good job in placing Vickrey’s long career in the context of 20th century American art history. Eliasoph sums up: [Vickrey] is more a revolutionary than the misconceived reactionary conservative.” [13]

C. Colleen Browning (1918-2003) Celebrating the artistic resiliency of Colleen Browning, Eliasoph was commissioned by the Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art to author a full scale monograph on the English-born émigré to the USA. “Colleen Browning: The Enchantment of Realism,” [Hudson Hills, 2011] placed her career in the context of the shifts of style in American art at mid-century. As a cartographer for the RAF during WWII and set designer at London cinema studies after the war, Browning demonstrated unusual skills as a realist artist. Arriving in New York in 1949, she was quickly featured in several ‘Magic Realist’ exhibitions and won prizes in several national art competitions. Among her most significant works are brilliantly composed observations of the streets of Harlem with its storefronts, tenements, and fire escapes capturing the look and feel of the 1950s. “Mr. Eliasoph identified this period as the zenith of her career. Despite the rising popularity of Abstract Expressionism, she was showing at the city’s pre-eminent galleries and her work was accepted into several exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art.” [14]

D. Robert Bizinsky (1915-1982) Rediscovering a treasure-trove of post-Impressionist works painted en plein air in Paris and the French countryside created in the late 1940s by Robert Bizinsky, Eliasoph worked with Shannon’s Fine Arts Private Sales t to re-ignite interest in this unknown artist. Trained at the High Museum Art School in the 1930s, the Atlanta native became a battle =field artist in the North Africa campaign of 1941-42. “Too often, earnest and hard-working artists have been all but forgotten despite a remarkable legacy. Over the years, Eliasoph has been credited with jump-starting the careers of American masters.” [15.]

E. Will Hutchins (1878-1945) American Tonalist and Impressionist artist Will Hutchins was brought back from obscurity with Eliasoph’s catalogue and exhibition at Southport Galleries in November 2012. A Renaissance man, Yale thespian, author, theatre director, and honorary captain in the Italian Army during WWI, Hutchins’ left a significant body of paintings and watercolors. Duncan Phillips, founder of the eponymous Phillips Collection, in Washington DC, praised Hutchins for his “quickly adapted [watercolors with a] lively, spontaneously charged palette in response to nature’s wonders.” [16]

F. Robert C. Jackson (1964 -  ). Spinning off of their shared appreciation for the traditions of American trompe l’oeil painting, Eliasoph sparked an amicable relationship with Brandywine Valley, Pennsylvania based artist Robert C. Jackson. Jackson’s playful, still life compositions are updated, fresh takes on the detailed objects and bric-a-brac of 19th century masters such as William J. Harnett or John F. Peto. Featured at the Brandywine Museum’s survey, “Reality Check-Contemporary American Trompe L’Oeil” in 2010, Eliasoph gave special attention to this rising young star of the realist movement. The result of their dialogue became: “Robert C. Jackson: Paintings,”  [Schiffer Publishing, 2012]. A library review source noted: “The paintings of Robert C. Jackson are introduced by Philip Eliasoph in the artist’s first monograph. Using paintings from artists as diverse as Andrew Wyeth and Jasper Johns, Eliasoph’s extensive knowledge of American art places Jackson’s artwork into a historical context,” [17]

G. Other publications Eliasoph has published widely on a range of topics from roving art criticism to travel, culture and lifestyle features reporting from Florence, Paris, Petra, Jordan, and San Francisco. Among the daily newspapers his art criticism columns have appeared in are: The Greenwich Time, The Stamford Advocate, and The Connecticut Post [Bridgeport], Hearst newspaper group. He served as Senior Arts Editor for VENU magazine, from 2009-14, and has published in depth articles in “Antiques &amp; Fine Art,” “The American Arts Quarterly,” and “American Art-the Journal of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.”

5. Personal Life Eliasoph married Yael Gertner Eliasoph in 1972, meeting her at Great Neck South High School three years earlier. They have three children and five grandchildren all currently in the San Francisco / Marin County area. Eliasoph is an active member of the Reformed Jewish community, while taking part in many ecumenical dialogues and forums addressing racial, ethnic, religious tolerance and inter-faith respect through the medium of the visual arts.

Books

Robert C. Jackson: Paintings, monograph, Schieffer Publishers, Aglen, Pa, 2012.

Colleen Browning, The Enchantment of Realism, monograph, Hudson Hills Press, New York and Manchester, VT, 2011.

Robert Vickrey: The Magic of Realism, monograph, Hudson Hills Press, New York and Manchester, VT. 2008.

Mark Balma: Drawing from Tradition, Electa Publishers, Milan, 1993 (English and Italian editions).

Art of the Western World: Faculty Study Guide, New York, 1989, Co-Author, Alfred A. Knopf and Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Paul Cadmus: Yesterday and Today, 1981, First retrospective exhibition and catalogue. Miami University Art Museum, Oxford, Ohio.

Articles

“Renovation of a Masterpiece: Yale’s Louis I. Kahn Building – Museum Restoration”, Antiques & Fine Art, Winter 2007, pp. 316-319.

“American Pantheon: A Neo-Georgian Estate Honors National Heritage”, The Catalogue of Antiques & Fine Art, Autumn 2004, pp. 104-115, (featured as cover story).

“Please Touch, Handle and Examine: Graduate Training Options at Christie’s and Sotheby’s”, The American Arts Quarterly, Winter 2005, Vol. 22, Number 1, pp. 14-22.

“Restoration Debate Spotlights American Students Abroad”, The American Arts Quarterly, Fall 2003, Vol. 20, No. 4, pp. 15-21.

“Florence” (original article) and “Venice” (signed review article), The New Book of Knowledge Encyclopedia, Scholastic Library Publishing, Library editions and on line, September 2005.

“Christo and Jeanne Claude”, (article) Scribner Encyclopedia of Europe in the 20th Century, (2006), New York: Scribner’s 2006.

“A Tribute to Paul Cadmus: Posthumous Appreciation,” American Art Journal-Smithsonian Institution, Fall, 2000, Vol 14. No 3.

“Art and Nature on Tuscany’s Canvas”, Chianti News, August 1998.

“Letter from Florence: The Art of Richard Maury”, American Arts Quarterly, Winter 1997.

“Paul Cadmus at Ninety: The Virtues of Depicting Sin”, American Arts Quarterly, Spring 1995.

“The Frescoes of Mark Balma”, American Arts Quarterly, Spring 1994.

“Paul Cadmus Today”, gallery announcement text, Midtown Payson Gallery, New York, March 1992.

“Richard Serra at Yale”, New Haven Arts, November 1990.

“Mastering Egg Tempera – The Techniques of Robert Vickrey”, The Artists’ Magazine, November 1987.

“Uffizi Gallery”, encyclopedia article, The New Book of Knowledge Encyclopedia, Grolier Publishers (revised article), 1986 edition.

“Florence”, encyclopedia article, The New Book of Knowledge Encyclopedia, Grolier Publishers, 1985 edition.

“A Magic World of Butterflies & Bicycle Shadows: Robert Vickrey”, Cape Cod Life, Spring 1985, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 78-85.

“A New Look at New Deal Post Office Art – Rediscovering Connecticut’s WPA Murals”, Connecticut Magazine, May 1983, Vol. 46, No. 5, pp. 48-52.

“Paul Cadmus and the Virtue of Anachronism”, Drawing, The International Review of the Drawing Society, New York, Vol. II., No. 5, Jan.-Feb. 1981, pp. 97-104.

“Robert Vickrey, Works: 1977-1980”, The New Renaissance, VI, 3, pp. 32-40 (excerpted with permission from copyrighted retrospective catalogue).

“Paul Cadmus, Works: 1933-1979”, The New Renaissance, V, 1, pp. 59-68 (excerpted with permission from copyrighted retrospective catalogue).

Plus: over 300 art exhibition reviews, features in regional daily and weekly press including Greenwich Time, Stamford Advocate, Connecticut Post between 1984-2005. Full listing with accessible links: www.DigitalCommons@fairfield.edu

Filmography

Robert Motherwell and Arthur C. Danto: A Dialogue on Modernism, Creative Director, video, symposium at Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, November 1988.

Robert Vickrey: Lyrical Realist, Co-Producer and Co-Director, winner of CINE Golden Eagle and accepted into four international festivals, broadcast by regional PBS affiliate stations via Eastern Educational Network’s satellite feed throughout 1987 with rights until 1990.

Stevan Dohanos’ Portrait of America, video, Creative Producer, Fairfield University and Connecticut Public Television, statewide broadcast, April 5, 1987.

Paul Cadmus: Enfant Terrible at Eighty, Associate Producer, winner of 20 national and international awards, broadcast on prime time by PBS throughout 1984 and continuing through the present.

Professional Memberships

•	College Art Association of America, 1974-present. •	American Section, Association International des Critiques d’Art, 1985-present. •	Salmagundi Club, New York City, (Honorary), 1996-present. •	National Sculpture Society, (Honorary), 1992-present. NOTES:

1.	“Stony Brook Happenings, Philip Eliasoph Ends Summer Lecture Series,” August 20, 2010. [] retrieved April 19, 2014

2.	Susan Dunne, “Fairfield U Exhibits Paintings of Realist Colleen Browning,” The Hartford Courant, February 3, 2013.

3.	Henry Adams, Introduction, Robert C. Jackson Paintings, Philip Eliasoph, Schiffer Publishing, March 2012.

4.	Susan Dunne, “Dustin Hoffman Talks About Philip Seymour Hoffman and his New Film: Cries About Philip Seymour Hoffman, Reminisces About Career.” The Hartford Courant, Feb 22, 2014. [] Retrieved April 19, 2014

5.	Fairfield University Press Release, April 17, 2008, vol. 40, No. 250. [] Retrieved April 19, 2014

6.	Hazel Kaufman, “From New Hyde Park and Great Neck, Around the Globe, Signatures on Petition, are Children’s Plea For Peace”, Local History Notes from the Great Neck Library, June 30, 2011. [] Retrieved April 19, 2014

7.	Philip Eliasoph, Paul Cadmus: Yesterday and Today, Miami University Art Museum, 1981.

8.	Lloyd Goodrich, “Foreword”, Paul Cadmus: Yesterday and Today, Miami University Art Museum, 1981.

9.	Vivien Raynor, “Paul Cadmus Retrospective,” The New York Times, April 4, 1982. Retrieved April 19, 2014

10.	“Art: Removals”, TIME magazine, April 30, 1934.

11.	Lincoln Kirstein, Paul Cadmus, Chameleon Books, NY, 1992.

12.	Philip Eliasoph, “That Other Time Censorship Stormed Into the Corcoran Gallery,” Opinion- Letter to the Editor, The New York Times, November 26, 1989.

13.	Gail Leggio, “Book Review,” American Arts Quarterly, Spring, 2009.

14.	Susan Hodara, “High Points and Other Stops in a Painter’s Career,” The New York Times, February 3, 2013.

15.	Phyllis A. S. Boros, “An American in Paris Celebrates Forgotten 1940s Works from Bizinsky,” The Connecticut Post, Hearst Newspaper Group, November 1, 2011.

16.	Phyllis A.S. Boros, “Rediscovery Will Hutchins in Southport,” The Connecticut Post, Hearst Newspapers, November 23, 2012.

17.	GoodReads.com.

WEB SOURCES:

www.PhilipEliasoph.com www.FairfieldUniversity/lassochannel/academic/profile/index.lasso?id=63. www.DigitalCommons@fairfield.edu www.twitter.com.PhilipEliasoph www.NYTimesinEducation.com/SuccessStory/Philip.Eliasoph-Ph-D/