John D. Graham

John D. Graham (, Kyiv, Ukraine – June 27, 1961, London, England) was a Ukrainian–born American modernist and figurative painter, art collector, and a mentor of modernist artists in New York City.

Born Ivan Gratianovitch Dombrowsky in Kyiv, he immigrated to New York in 1920. He studied painting for the first time in his 30s, becoming deeply interested in modernism. In addition to gaining attention for his own work, he championed the new movement as a collector and curator. He was a mentor to a younger generation of American artists, who developed the style of Abstract Expressionism in the New York area. In the 1940s and 1950s, Graham developed a new figurative style derived from classical masters, which he first showed in paintings and drawings of Russian soldiers. He died in London, England.

Early life and career Dombrovsky was born into an aristocratic family of Szlachta descent to parents Gratian-Ignatius Dombrovsky and Youzefa Dombrovsky (née Brezinska). He went on to serve as a cavalry officer under Czar Nicholas II during World War I in the Circassian Regiment of the Russian Imperial Army. For his efforts in the war, he earned the Saint George's Cross. They settled in New York City. He began calling himself John (Ivan in English) in the United States, and had his name officially changed to John D. Graham upon becoming a United States citizen in 1927. They had a son, David Graham. The son later married Patricia Thompson, and died in Windermere, Florida. David Graham had gone to Europe to retrieve the remainder of his father's work upon the latter’s death. Patricia Thompson Graham later gave numerous works by his father to the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Other of Graham's relatively small collection of remaining works are in her sisters Kathryn and Jean's portfolios. Mysteria 2 (1927), The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. While in Baltimore, Graham joined a group called The Modernists. He served as their secretary and exhibited in their gallery. In this period, in addition to painting, Graham established himself as an art connoisseur and collector. He most notably established a collection of African art for Vanity Fair editor Frank Crowninshield. Graham himself also collected traditional African art, and eventually developed part of his studio at 57 Greenwich Avenue into what he called the Primitive Arts Gallery. He was greatly interested in developing knowledge of advances and changes in the art world, and kept in touch with what was taking place in Europe as well as the US.

Graham and Elinor Gibson were divorced in 1934, and she kept custody of their son David.

That year Graham met American Constance Wellman in Paris; they married in New York City in 1936 and lived in Brooklyn Heights. They were near other artists Adolph Gottlieb, David Smith, and Dorothy Dehner. Wellman was instrumental in editing Graham's book System and Dialectics of Art, which he published in 1937. Graham and Wellman worked for Hilla Rebay in 1938, helping her execute the first exhibition of the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, which later developed to become the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Along with many others, Graham and his wife struggled financially during the Great Depression. They moved to Mexico for its lower cost of living, and continued to live there on and off. Wellman and Graham separated in August 1942, dividing their assets equally. Wellman initiated subsequent divorce proceedings, on the grounds of "extreme cruelty, mental in nature" committed by Graham. The divorce was finalized in the state of Nevada on July 16, 1945.

During the 1940s Graham married for the fifth time, to Marianne Schapira Strate. She had a grown daughter, Ileana Sonnabend, who was then married to Leo Castelli. They both became influential in the New York art world and were known as independent gallery owners and dealers.

Graham served as a mentor to younger artists such as Jackson Pollock, Richard Pousette-Dart, Willem de Kooning, and Arshile Gorky. He introduced Ileana and Leo Castelli to his artist friends in the New York art world. He was also considered influential to Lee Krasner (Pollock's wife and an artist in her own right), David Smith, Dorothy Dehner, and Mark Rothko. Graham claimed to have befriended Picasso and many other important European modernists while living in Paris and in Russia. He often entertained and lectured the younger American artists in New York City about modernist ideas. He was frequently the bearer of radical new insights into art and creativity. It was an enormously influential text during the 1940s and supported the modernist movement.

During this period and into the 1950s, Graham also continued to paint, developing a "unique figurative style" derived from classical forms; he was especially influenced by the works of Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Nicolas Poussin, and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. He signed these paintings with "Ioannus", the Latin form of John and Ivan. Among his first works in this style were paintings and drawings of Russian soldiers completed about 1943, drawn from his own experience in the imperial army during World War I.

After his death, Graham's art of his last two decades was the subject of increasing scholarly and market interest. In 1968, MOMA circulated a traveling exhibition of his works from this period, John D. Graham/Paintings and Drawings.