Irving Amen

Irving Amen (1918–2011 ) was an American painter, printmaker and sculptor.

Life Born in New York City in 1918, Amen began drawing at the age of four. A scholarship to the Pratt Institute was awarded to him when he was fourteen years old.

From 1942 to 1945 he served with the Armed Forces. He headed a mural project and executed murals in the United States and Belgium.

His first exhibition of woodcuts was held at the New School for Social Research and his second at the Smithsonian Institution in 1949. He also exhibited at the Artists House in Jerusalem, the Library of Congress, and the National Academy of Design.

Amen studied in Paris in 1950. Upon his return to the United States, he had one man shows in New York and Washington DC.

In 1953, Amen traveled throughout Italy. This resulted in a series of eleven woodcuts, eight etchings and a number of oil paintings. One of these woodcuts, "Piazza San Marco #4" and its four woodblocks constitute a permanent exhibit of block printing in color at the Smithsonian Institution.

Travel in Israel, Greece and Turkey in 1960 led to a retrospective show at the Artist's House in Jerusalem. His art is widely owned and loved. Irving Amen has taught at Pratt Institute and at the University of Notre Dame. He had a show of woodcuts at the Artists Studio in NYC.

In 1974 he illustrated The Epic of Gilgamesh in linocuts and woodcuts for the Limited Editions Club. He designed a set of stained glass windows depicting the Twelve Tribes of Israel for Agudas Achim Synagogue in Bexley, Ohio. His work often depicts themes of Judaism, chess, people, music, Italy and Don Quixote. In his later years he lived and worked in Boca Raton, Florida.

Commissions include a Peace Medal in honor of the Vietnam War. He created designs for 12 stained glass windows 16 feet high depicting the Twelve Tribes of Israel, commissioned by Agudas Achim Synagogue in Columbus, Ohio.

He is listed in Mantle Fielding's Dictionary of American Painters, Sculptors and Engravers and the Dictionary of Contemporary American Artists by Paul Cummings. Amen was also a member of the Society of American Graphic Artists. He was elected member of Accademia Fiorentina Delle Arti Del Disegno, an organization to which Michelangelo, his idol, belonged.

Born in New York City, he taught at the Pratt Institute and at the University of Notre Dame in the early 1960s. National Museum of American History, Washington, D.C. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York The National Gallery of Art Washington University of South Alabama – Mobile, Alabama Arizona State University – Tempe, Arizona Tucson Museum of Art – Tucson, Arizona Arkansas Art Center Foundation – Little Rock, Arkansas Arkansas State University – State University, Arkansas Judah L. Magnes Memorial Museum – Berkeley, California Skirball Museum Hebrew Union College – Los Angeles, California' Mills College – Oakland, California Stanford University Museum of Art – Stanford, California Hausatonic Museum – Bridgeport, Connecticut Yale University – New Haven, Connecticut University of Georgia – Athens, Georgia Honolulu Academy of Arts – Honolulu, Hawaii Art Institute of Chicago – Chicago, Illinois Quincy College Art Gallery – Quincy, Illinois Rosary College – River Forest, Illinois Illinois State Museum – Springfield, Illinois Lafayette Art Center – Lafayette, Indiana Art Gallery, University of Notre Dame – Notre Dame, Indiana Davenport Municipal Art Gallery – Davenport, Iowa Des Moines Art Center – Des Moines, Iowa University of Maine Art Gallery – Orono, Maine Baltimore Museum of Art – Baltimore, Maryland Boston Museum of Fine Arts – Boston, Massachusetts Harvard Art Museum – Boston, Massachusetts Town of Brookline Public Library – Brookline, Massachusetts Fogg Art Museum – Cambridge, Massachusetts De Cordova and Dana Museum – Lincoln, Massachusetts Art Museum Mount Holyoke College – South Hadley, Massachusetts Museum of Fine Arts – Springfield, Massachusetts Albion College – Albion, Michigan University of Minnesota – Minneapolis, Minnesota Central Missouri State University – Warrensburg, Missouri Art Gallery University of Nebraska – Lincoln, Nebraska The Art Museum Princeton University – Princeton, N.J. Dartmouth College – Hanover, New Hampshire Rutgers University – New Brunswick, New Jersey Museum of New Mexico – Santa Fe, New Mexico Jewish Museum – New York City, N.Y. New York Public Library – New York City, N.Y. State University of New York – New Paltz, N.Y. University of Rochester Memorial Art Gallery – Rochester, N.Y. Syracuse University Art Collection – Syracuse, N.Y. Asheville Art Museum, Asheville, North Carolina Salem College – Winston-Salem, North Carolina Cincinnati Art Museum – Cincinnati, Ohio Dayton Art Institute – Dayton, Ohio Butler Institute of American Art – Youngstown, Ohio Oklahoma Museum of Art – Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Coos Art Museum – Coos Bay, Oregon Oregon State University – Corvallis, Oregon Lehigh University – Bethlehem, Pennsylvania City of Philadelphia Public Library – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia Museum of Art – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Museum of Art – Carnegie Institute – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania The Charleston Museum – Charleston, South Carolina Colombia Museum of Art – Columbia, South Carolina Brooks Memorial Art Gallery – Memphis, Tennessee Virginia Museum of Fine Arts – Richmond, Virginia Corcoran Gallery of Art – Washington, D.C. Library of Congress – Washington, D.C. Smithsonian American Art Museum – Washington, D.C. Huntington Galleries – Huntington, West Virginia Madison Art Center – Madison, Wisconsin Neville Public Museum – Green Bay, Wisconsin Milwaukee Public Library – Milwaukee, Wisconsin Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library – Topeka, Kansas

Notable collections – international

Albertina Museum – Vienna, Austria Bibliothèque Royal – Brussels, Belgium University Art Museum – Edmonton, Canada Fitzwilliam Museum – Cambridge, England Usher Gallery – Lincolnshire, England Victoria and Albert Museum – London, England Biblioteheque Nationale – Paris, France Bezalel National Museum – Jerusalem, Israel Auckland City Art Gallery – Auckland, New Zealand Statische Museum – Elberfeld, Germany

Commissions Designed a Peace Medal to commemorate the end of the Vietnam War. Illustrated the classic, GILGAMESH, for the Limited Editions Club. Created Designs for twelve stained glass windows sixteen feet high depicting the twelve tribes of Israel, commissioned by Agudas Achim Synagogue at Columbus, Ohio.