Adolf Dehn

Adolf Dehn (November 22, 1895 – May 19, 1968) was an American artist known mainly as a lithographer. Throughout his artistic career, he participated in and helped define some important movements in American art, including regionalism, social realism, and caricature. A two-time recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship, he was known for both his technical skills and his high-spirited, droll depictions of human foibles.

Biography Dehn was born in 1895 in Waterville, Minnesota. He began creating artwork at the age of six, and by the time of his death had created nearly 650 images.

After graduating as valedictorian from Waterville High School in 1914, he went to the Minneapolis School of Art (known today as the Minneapolis College of Art and Design), where he met and became a close friend of Wanda Gág. She was Dehn's first love and the two were "practically inseparable for the next five years... " (1916–1921). In 1917 he and Gág were two of only a dozen students in the country to earn a scholarship to the Art Students League of New York. He was drafted to serve in World War I in 1918, but declared himself a conscientious objector and spent four months in a guardhouse detention camp in Spartanburg, SC and then worked for eight months as a painting teacher at an arm rehabilitation hospital in Asheville, NC. Later, Dehn returned to the Art Students League for another year of study and created his first lithograph, The Harvest.

Early career In 1921 Dehn's lithographs were featured in his first exhibition at Weyhe Gallery in New York City. From 1920 to 1921 in Manhattan, he was connected to New York's politically left-leaning activists. In 1921, he went to Europe. In Paris and Vienna he belonged to a group of expatriate intellectuals and artists, including Andrée Ruellan, Gertrude Stein, and ee cummings.

Dehn found living in Europe cheap and was able to embark on artist adventures of what some consider the "glory years" of the 20s. About his time in Europe, he said, "Life in Paris is simply glorious." He supported himself through his time in Europe by providing light-hearted cartoons and scenic European landscapes to editors back in the U.S. A number of the caricatures he drew depicting the Roaring 20s, burlesque, opera houses, and the café scene appeared in such magazines as Vanity Fair. Dehn himself felt that his caricatures and cartoons were different from others because his motives were "never really political" but more focused on social commentary. The fame that Dehn achieved during his time in Europe, his illustrations appearing in many leftist publications such as The Liberator, The New Masses, and The Dial, was noted by hometown paper The Minneapolis Journal in 1925. The publication described Dehn as "being born with a pitchfork in his mouth" while commenting on the worldly nature of his drawings.

His favorite medium was lithography, and he alternated between spoofing high society and creating beautiful landscapes. Throughout his time in Europe, Dehn was in contact with many other notable intellectuals and artists of the time, including Josephine Baker, Kurt Weill, and Leo Stein. It was in Paris that Dehn met his first wife, Mura Ziperovitch (Mura Dehn), a dancer who had left revolutionary Russia. Upon his return to the U.S. the Chicago Tribunes Paris edition published a farewell to Dehn, stating, "We are sorry to see that Adolf Dehn is going back to America," marking the impression his presence made among the inhabitants of Montparnasse.

Later career In 1929 Dehn returned to New York City with his wife. As the Great Depression had taken hold of the country, Dehn and his wife were desperately poor, and their financial difficulties contributed to their ultimate divorce. In the 1930s, his work began to appear in magazines such as The New Yorker and Vogue. During his period as a lithographer, his striking images of New York, including Central Park, captured the essence of the Roaring 20s and the 1930s Depression.

Beginning in 1930, Dehn made numerous trips back to his home in Minnesota, where he could live cheaply, and he executed a significant number of drawings and lithographs based on Midwest scenes. He also summered on Martha's Vineyard from 1933 to 1936, often in the company of Thomas Hart Benton, Jackson Pollock, Georges Schreiber, and others in the vicinity of Gay Head and Menemsha, and joined by his girlfriend at the time, Eileen Lake.

In the early 1930s, Dehn established The Adolf Dehn Print Club and became a founding member of the Associated American Artists. He rose to the top tier of American watercolorists in short order, seen in a feature article on his landscape watercolors in Life magazine (August, 1941) and a traveling show organized by the Museum of Modern Art, "Four American Water Colorists" (1943–44) in which eleven Dehn watercolors were joined with the works of Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, and Charles Burchfield. Watercolor painting and casein painting represented signature second and third arms of Dehn's artistic output for the rest of his career.

In 1944, Dehn met Virginia Engleman, who was working in the Associated American Artists printshop. The couple married in 1947 and enjoyed an artistic collaboration for the rest of his life. He is remembered as a prolific artist of great range. His works are held in over 100 museums (including the National Gallery of Art, National Portrait Gallery, Metropolitan Museum, Museum of Modern Art, and Whitney Museum of American Art); over 25 museums hold extensive collections of his output. Many prominent galleries represented Dehn as his fame grew, and posthumously, among them Harmon-Meek Gallery and Thomas French Fine Art.

Works

Paintings and drawings Dehn had a distinct style of illustration and painting. His drawings of this period exhibit freedom in line and form along with social satire.

Collections Selected museum and other institutional collections holding Adolf Dehn paintings and/or prints as part of their permanent collections include the following.

+Museum/institutionLocationAckland Art Museum, The University of North Carolina at Chapel HillChapel Hill, NC Albertina MuseumVienna, Austria Albright-Knox Art GalleryBuffalo, NY Arizona State University Art MuseumTempe, AZ Art Institute of ChicagoChicago, ILArt Museum of Western Virginia (now Taubman Museum of Art)Roanoke, VA Audubon House and Tropical GardensKey West, FLThe Baker Museum Artis-NaplesNaples, FL Besser Museum for Northeast MichiganAlpena, MI Boca Raton Museum of ArtBoca Raton, FLBritish MuseumLondon, UK Brooklyn MuseumBrooklyn, NY Buffalo Bill Center of the WestCody, WYThe Butler Institute of American ArtYoungstown, OHCanton Museum of ArtCanton, OHCarnegie Museum of ArtPittsburgh, PACharles H. MacNider Art MuseumMason City, IACincinnati Art MuseumCincinnati, OHColorado Springs Fine Art CenterColorado Springs, COColumbus Museum of ArtColumbus, OHCummer Museum of Art and GardensJacksonville, FLDavid Winton Bell Gallery, List Art Center, Brown UniversityProvidence, RIDavidson Art Center, Wesleyan UniversityMiddletown, CTdeCordova Sculpture Park and MuseumLincoln, MADetroit Institute of ArtsDetroit, MIEl Paso Museum of ArtEl Paso, TX Everhart MuseumScranton, PAFairfield University Art MuseumFairfield, CT Farnsworth Art MuseumRockland, ME Fayetteville Museum of ArtFayetteville, NC Flint Institute of ArtFlint, MI The George Washington University Dimmock GalleryWashington, DC Georgia Museum of Art, University of GeorgiaAthens, GA Golisano Children's Museum of NaplesNaples, FL Grand Rapids Art MuseumGrand Rapids, MI Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts, UCLALos Angeles, CA Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture GardenWashington, DC Hofstra University MuseumHempstead, NY Illinois State MuseumSpringfield, IL Indianapolis Museum of ArtIndianapolis, IN Jewett Arts Center, Wellesley CollegeWellesley, MA Joslyn Art MuseumOmaha, NE Kalamazoo Institute of ArtsKalamazoo, MI Kresge Art Museum, Michigan State UniversityEast Lansing, MI La Salle University Art MuseumPhiladelphia, PA Le Sueur County Historical SocietyLeCenter, MN Louisiana Arts & Science MuseumBaton Rouge, LALSU Libraries, LSUBaton Rouge, LA Luther CollegeDecorah, IA McNay Art MuseumSan Antonio, TX Mead Art Museum, Amherst CollegeAmherst, MAMeadows Museum, Southern Methodist UniversityDallas, TXMemorial Art Gallery, University of RochesterRochester, NYMemphis Brooks Museum of ArtMemphis, TNThe Metropolitan Museum of ArtNew York, NY Midwest Museum of American ArtElkhart, IN Minneapolis Institute of ArtMinneapolis, MNMinnesota Historical SocietySt. Paul, MN Minnesota Museum of American ArtSt. Paul, MN Missouri State University CollectionSpringfield, MOMitchell Wolfson CollectionMiami Beach, FL Montclair Art MuseumMontclair, NJ Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts InstituteUtica, NY Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of MissouriColumbia, MO Museum of Art - DeLandDeland, FLMuseum of Fine ArtsSt. Petersburg, FL Museum of Fine Arts Springfield MuseumsSpringfield, MA Museum of Modern ArtNew York, NY National Gallery of ArtWashington, DC Naval History and Heritage Command MuseumsWashington, DC New Britain Museum of American ArtNew Britain, CT New Orleans Museum of ArtNew Orleans, LA Newark MuseumNewark, NJ Norfolk Museum of Arts and Sciences (now Chrysler Museum of Art)Norfolk, VA Norton Museum of ArtWest Palm Beach, FL Ohio Wesleyan University Art CollectionDelaware, OH Paine Art Center and GardensOshkosh, WI Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine ArtsPhiladelphia, PA Philadelphia Museum of ArtPhiladelphia, PA Philbrook Museum of ArtTulsa, OK Plattsburgh State Art Museum, State University of New YorkPlattsburgh, NY Portland Art MuseumPortland, OR Queens MuseumQueens, NY Radford University Art MuseumRadford, VA Roswell Museum & Art CenterRoswell, NM Saint Louis Art MuseumSt. Louis, MO San Francisco Museum of Modern ArtSan Francisco, CA São Paulo Museum of ArtSão Paulo, Brazil Seattle Art Museum Seattle, WA Sheldon Museum of Art, University of NebraskaLincoln, NE Smithsonian American Art MuseumWashington, DCSmithsonian National Portrait GalleryWashington, DC Southern Alleghenies Museum of ArtLoretto, PA Speed Art MuseumLouisville, KY Spencer Museum of Art, University of KansasLawrence, KS Springfield Art MuseumSpringfield, MO Swope Art MuseumTerre Haute, IN Syracuse University Art GalleriesSyracuse, NY Terra Museum of American Art (now closed)Chicago, IL Tweed Museum of Art, University of MinnesotaDuluth, MN Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita State UniversityWichita, KS The University of Arizona Museum of ArtTucson, AZ University of New Mexico Art MuseumAlbuquerque, NMVirginia Museum of Fine ArtsRichmond, VA The von Liebig Art CenterNaples, FL Wadsworth AtheneumHartford, CT Walker Art CenterMinneapolis, MN Washington Pavilion of Arts and ScienceSioux Falls, SD Whitney Museum of American ArtNew York, NY Wichita Art MuseumWichita, KS Wichita Falls Museum of Art at Midwestern State UniversityWichita Falls, TX Woodstock Artists Association and MuseumWoodstock, NY Wright Museum of Art, Beloit CollegeBeloit, WI Yale University Art GalleryNew Haven, CT Yellowstone Art MuseumBillings, MT

Exhibition history Adolf Dehn exhibitions, 1915–2021: