Emil Armin

Early life and education Armin was born in Rădăuți, Austria-Hungary (now Romania) in 1883. who was an amateur artist.

When Armin was 10, his parents died. In 1916, having saved four hundred dollars from his many jobs, he transitioned from taking only night classes to taking day classes as a full-time student, Other instructors included Enella Benedict, Albert Henry Krehbiel, He was a modernist painter, with a fondness for painting landscapes, primitive peoples, flowers and animals.

In his work, Armin synthesized contemporary artistic trends with inspiration drawn from his Jewish roots and from the peasant traditions of the American Southwest and his native Eastern Europe.

Most of his work was completed in Chicago. After finishing his studies, Armin joined a group of artists, including Gertrude Abercrombie, Francis Strain and Charles Biesel, at the 57th Street Art Colony in Hyde Park, near Stony island Avenue, where he lived and worked until 1925. Other notable artists that joined included Frances Foy, Gustaf Dalstrom and Beatrice S. Levy. from 1926 to 1930.

Critical response

Armin made an impression with the local Chicago art critics. J. Z. Jacobson, an art critic for The Chicagoan, covered Armin's work and eventually wrote a full book on Armin called Thirty-Five Saints and Emil Armin, in which he described Armin as "Playful as a child. Solemn as a prophet. Funny as a clown. Poor as St. Francis of Assisi and almost as happy. Taking the slings and arrows of outrageous fate with stoic calm." )

In 1913, Armin had visited the controversial Armory Show when it was exhibited at the Art Institute, and he fell under the sway of European and American modernism.

Inspired by the modernist movement, Armin and other Chicago artists formed their own open and free groups—including The Introspectives, the Cor Ardens, Chicago No-Jury Society of Artists, and Neo-Arlimusc—to provide an alternative to the conservative Art Institute of Chicago.

Active in all of these groups, Armin exhibited in every one of the No-Jury Society's shows beginning with the second,

Marriage and family In 1945, at the age of 65, Armin married Hilda Rose Diamond, a social worker for the Jewish Family and Community Service in Chicago.