Minna Citron

Minna Wright Citron (October 15, 1896 – December 21, 1991) was an American painter and printmaker. Her early prints focus on the role of women, sometimes in a satirical manner, in a style known as urban realism. Later in her career, Citron's work shifted from realism to abstract, but still delt with women's social issues.

Early life and education

Minna Wright was born on October 15, 1896, in Newark, New Jersey, the youngest of five children. She began to study art in 1924 at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences and the New York School of Applied Design for Women, while married and living in Brooklyn, taking care of her two children. By 1928, she was studying at the Art Students League with John Sloan, Harry Sternberg, Kimon Nicolaïdes, and Kenneth Hayes Miller. whose satirical depictions of city life influenced her own style. She had her first solo exhibition in 1930 at the New School for Social Research. The work in this show addressed issues of gender and sexism in a satirical light; in these pieces, Citron not only criticized men for the subordination of women, but also held women accountable for their own complicity in a sexist society.

In the early 1940s, Citron's work shifted towards a more abstract style . She joined Atelier 17, a renowned printmaking school and studio which had been relocated to New York due to World War II. During her time at Atelier 17, she pioneered new methods of three-dimensional printmaking and assemblage to create a three dimensional effect. She also began to embrace chance, spontaneity, and mistakes in her work and relying on improvisation or automatism, a method consistent with the work of other artists at Atelier 17 and perhaps influenced by Citron's interest in Freudian psychoanalysis and the unconscious, which she had become familiar with in the 1920s. shifted to address war time issues. Soon after World War II she traveled abroad to Paris. In the 1950s, she taught art at the High School of Music & Art where she was respected as a teacher who introduced her students to all the possible means of expression from realism to the current avant-garde abstract expressionists.

A 1960 solo exhibit in Zagreb was the first time an American artist had mounted such a show in Yugoslavia. In the 1970s (when she was in her seventies), she strongly identified with the women's movement and considered herself a feminist at heart, although she was never directly involved with organized feminist movements or protests. Citron responded to critiques of abstract art by explaining its purpose and message to the public through lectures and speeches.

Personal life and legacy At age 20, Minna Wright married Henry Citron, a businessman. Together they moved to Brooklyn, where they had two sons, Casper and Thomas, before their divorce in 1934. She had a longtime relationship with lawyer and philanthropist Arthur B. Brenner; their shared interest in psychoanalysis was an influence on Citron's work.

Minna Citron died on 21 December 1991, age 95, at Beth Israel Hospital, Manhattan. Her work is in the collection of the Georgia Museum of Art. 116 of her prints can be found in the collection of the Ulrich Museum of Art.

A traveling exhibition of her work, titled "Minna Citron: The Uncharted Course From Realism to Abstraction," was organized by the Juniata College Museum of Art in Huntingdon, PA and the artist's granddaughter. It appeared at Georgia Museum of Art late in 2012, Texas A&M University in 2013, and at University of Richmond in late 2014. It opened at Syracuse University in February 2015. Citron's work is also included in a traveling exhibition "Prints by Women: Selected European and American Works from the Georgia Museum of Art," organized by the Georgia Museum of Art.

Her image is included in the iconic 1972 poster Some Living American Women Artists by Mary Beth Edelson.