Reuben Kadish

Reuben Kadish (January 29, 1913 – September 20, 1992) was an American artist who worked as a sculptor, draughtsman, muralist, painter, and printmaker. In his later career he taught art history and sculpture in New York City, most notably at Cooper Union.

Biography

Early life

Kadish was born in Chicago on January 29, 1913, to immigrant parents from Kovno (now Kaunas) in the Russian Empire (now Lithuania). He was the eldest of three sons. The family moved to Los Angeles, California, in 1920. In January 2025, the mural—by then known as The Struggle Against Terrorism—was unveiled to the public at the Regional Museum of Michoacán in Morelia following a major restoration. He did not paint again, but turned instead to sculpture, working with the materials and machinery of farm life.

Kadish's terra cotta and bronze sculptures were exhibited at the Elaine Poindexter Gallery and the Grace Borgenicht Gallery, as well as in two retrospective exhibitions: one at the Artists' Choice Museum in SoHo in 1985 and another at the New Jersey State Museum in 1990.

Personal life

During the 1960s, Kadish's wife, Barbara Weeks Kadish, pursued her interests in archaeology at New York University, eventually leading NYU's excavations at Aphrodisias in southwestern Turkey. In 1962, the Kadishes' eldest son, Dan Kadish, married Musa Jane Guston, daughter of Philip Guston.

Kadish was also a part-owner of the White Horse Tavern, the Greenwich Village bar where the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas died in November 1953.

Reception

Kadish influenced a generation of students at Cooper Union, where his lectures ranged across Egyptian funerary sculpture, Greek mythology, and art and architecture from around the world. A portion of his slide collection is held in Cooper Union's library.

In 2018, the University of Kentucky Art Museum held two exhibitions featuring Kadish's work: "Witness" and "Frankensteinian".