Jules Olitski

Jevel Demikovski (March 27, 1922 – February 4, 2007), known professionally as Jules Olitski, was an American painter, printmaker, and sculptor. Olitski was born Jevel Demikovsky in Snovsk, in Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (now Chernihiv Oblast, Ukraine), a few months after his father, a commissar, was executed by the Soviet government. He emigrated to the United States in 1923 with his mother and grandmother and settled in Brooklyn. His grandmother cared for him while his mother worked to support the family. In 1926 his mother married Hyman Olitsky (note "y" ending), a widower with two sons. A daughter was born in 1930. Olitski showed an aptitude for drawing and by 1935 was taking occasional art classes in Manhattan. He attended public schools in New York, winning an art prize upon his graduation from high school. At an exhibit of the work of some of the great masters at the New York World's Fair in 1939 he was very impressed by Rembrandt's portraits. Subsequently he won a scholarship to study art at Pratt Institute and was admitted to the National Academy of Design in New York. His education continued at Beaux Arts Institute in New York from 1940-42. After discharge from the Army in 1945, Olitski married and stayed with Leo and Alma Gershenson in Asheville, NC. After some time, following Leo's advice, he traveled to Mexico. He later returned to New York, and then in the late 40s went to Paris on the G.I. Bill where he studied at the Ossip Zadkine School and the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, both in Paris. In Paris he saw the European modern masters and engaged in a severe self-analysis, which involved painting while blindfolded to remove himself from all of his customary habits and facility. In 1951 in Paris Olitski presented his first one-man show. Having returned to New York in 1951, Olitski received his B.A. in 1952 and his M.A. in 1954 in Art Education, both from New York University Olitski had his first one-person show at Galerie Huit, Paris in 1951.