Jolan Gross-Bettelheim

Jolán Gross-Bettelheim (January 28, 1900–July 29, 1972) was a Hungarian artist who lived and worked in the United States from 1925 to 1956, before returning to Hungary.

Early life and education Gross-Bettelheim was born on January 28, 1900, in Nitra, Slovakia then Hungary, but lived in the United States from 1925 to 1956. She studied painting at the Budapest School of Fine Art in 1919, followed by studies at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna and the Akademie der Bildenden Künst in Berlin. Frigyes Bettelheim, and settled in Cleveland by 1925. She and her husband relocated to New York City in 1938. She contributed to leftist publications such as New Masses and the Daily Worker. It was a time when lithography was seen as a viable art form, rather than being limited to commercial use. It engaged in numerous activities to expand exposure for Cleveland printmakers, with the goal of increasing the sales of their works. The show included 100 prints created by artists from the American Artists' Congress, including Gross-Bettelheim.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) Federal Art Project (FAP) had a graphic arts division of which printmaking was a part. A graphic arts workshop was set up in Cleveland as a part of the WPA, operating officially as Graphic Arts Project No. 8048 from December 1935 to 1943, being most productive in 1936-37. Gross-Bettelheim produced prints for the WPA graphics workshop, as well. The American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) sponsored a traveling exhibition, Fifty Prints of the Year, which included work by Gross-Bettelheim.

Later life She returned to Hungary after 1956, and died in Budapest on July 29, 1972. Sabine Kretzschmar describes Gross-Bettelheim as “the purest modernist” amongst Cleveland printmakers, reflecting the influence of German expressionism, constructivism, and cubism.

Her work explored social and political issues. The plight of unemployment is addressed in her print In the Employment Office (ca. 1936, lithograph) and racism in Workers Meeting (Scottsboro Boys) (ca. 1935, drypoint).

The stark black and white images convey a sense of humanity being oppressed by the scale of industry. For example, Gross-Bettelheim’s ca. 1940 lithograph Assembly Line portrays a claustrophobic space filled with workers and a haunting image of lines of gas masks on a factory assembly line. Her 1936 lithograph Civilization at the Crossroads (Fascism II) depicts the rising threat of Fascism in Europe.

Gallery

Collections Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH. Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL. Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ. University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, MI. Akron Art Museum, Akron, OH.

Exhibitions May Shows at the Cleveland Museum of Art 1927-1937 (annual exhibition) [except for 1933] Kokoon Club, 1932, first solo exhibition Artists for Victory, 1942, at Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York Artists for Victory, 1943 [show held in 36 museums simultaneously] America in the War, 1943 Library of Congress annual print shows, Washington, DC 1943-1950 Annual Exhibition of Northwest Printmakers, Seattle Art Museum, 1944-1953 Durand-Ruel Galleries in Manhattan, 1945 Art Institute of Chicago, 2 watercolor shows Modernist Abstraction in American Prints, Laguna Art Museum, 1992 Jolán Gross-Bettelheim: The American Prints, Print and Drawing Study Room of the Faulconer Gallery, Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa April 27-May 21, 2001 Jolán Gross-Bettelheim: An American Printmaker in an Age of Progress” Eisenberg Gallery in the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum in New Brunswick., NJ Mar 19, 2011 - Jul 31, 2011