"A great guy. Mirski was a very personable, extroverted, bouncy guy, you know, friendly. One of those people who I will just for the sake of no other word call liberal, you know. He accepted a person as they were, you know."
(Calvin Burnett in a interview by Robert Brown)
"Boris Mirski began life in Vilna, Russia, where his father was a lumber merchant. As a child he saw a film of New York which so excited his imagination that he became determined to leave Vilna and go to the New World. Though his family was horrified at the idea, his father agreed to give him a thousand rubles to make the trip in the firm belief that he would eventually come to his senses and return home. He never did..."
"Consuelo Cloos is one of those rare individuals who can express deep tenderness and brooding beauty in her work as an artist. It is very difficult to speak of her art; it must be seen and felt. I can recommend her unreservedly both as an artist and human being." - Boris Mirski, Boris Mirski Galleries, Boston, November 17,1960
"Coburn discusses returning to and dropping out of MIT; working at the Institute of Modern Art in Boston through Hyman Swetzoff; folowing Swetzoff to the Boris Mirski Gallery; studying at Mirski's art school with Esther Geller and John Wilson and friends made at the school, including Ellsworth Kelly, Arthur Polonsky, and Reed Kaye. He recalls Carl Nelson, one of his teachers. He talks about the change in atmosphere at the Institute with the replacement of Thomas Metcalf by James Plaut and Nathaniel Saltonstall who changed the Institute's name to Institute of Contemporary Art and the protest surrounding the name change..."
from folio: Encantadas, Two Sketches from
Herman Melville's Enchanted Isles, 1963
woodcuts by Leonard Baskin
after drawings by Rico Lebrun
collection of Scattergood-Moore After Paolo Veronese's Judith and Holopherne
1952, pen and ink drawing with wash
collection of Scattergood-Moore
Three Studies: Three Penny Opera/Brecht
Graphite, ink, wash 1961
"Jack Levine was born in Boston in 1915. Early renderings of his tough, immigrant South End neighborhood drew the attention of his teachers at the Boston Museum of Fine Art. His talent inspired Dr. Denman Ross of Harvard University to offer tutelage, studio space and weekly stipends to help nurture his development. Levine's drawings earned him a first exhibition at Harvard's Fogg Art Museum in 1932 when he was seventeen..."
"I am primarily concerned with the condition of man. The satirical direction I have chosen is an indication of my disappointment in man, which is the opposite way of saying that I have high expectations for the human race." ‹ Jack Levine
The logo for The Boris Mirski Gallery was designed by Leonard Baskin.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
BOOKS and PAMPHLETS
Rachel Rosenfield Lafo, Nicholas J Capasso, Jennifer Uhrhane Painting in Boston: 1950-2000
DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park
University of Massachusetts Press, 2002
Bookbinder, Judith. Boston Modern: Figurative Expressionism
as Alternative Modernismreview
University of New Hampshire Press, 2005
Thompson, Dorothy Abbott. Origins of Boston Expressionism: The Artist' Perspective
DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA, 1986
Hill, Edward. The Language of Drawing,
New York: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1967
Selz, Peter. New Images of Man,
New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1959
Rodman, Selden. Conversations with Artists,
New York: Devin-Adairs, Co. 1957
EXHIBITIONS and CATALOGS
Expressionism in Boston: 1945-1985
DeCordova Museum, Lincoln MA, June 14-Sept 7, 1986
Boston Expressionism: Hyman Bloom, Jack Levine, Karl Zerbe
Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Jan 9 - Feb 25, 1979
Allan Rohan Crite, Linda Etcoff, Emily Eveleth, Gregory Gillespie, Michael Mazur, John Moore, Walter Murch, George Nick, Scott Prior, Barnet Rubenstein, Donald Shambroom, Elaine Spatz-Rabinowitz, Sarah Supplee, James Weeks
Doug Anderson, David Aronson, Gerry Bergstein, Hyman Bloom, Bernard Chaet, Dana C. Chandler (Akin Duro), Robert Ferrandini, Aaron Fink, Alex Grey, Philip Guston, Timothy Harney, Jon Imber, Todd McKie, Flora Natapoff, Arthur Polonsky, Henry Schwartz, Mitchell Siporin, Barbara Swan, Lois Tarlow, John Walker, Candace Walters, Maxine Yalovitz-Blankenship, Karl Zerbe
Albert Alcalay, Natalie Alper, Gregory Amenoff, Domingo Barreres, Jack Clift, Friedel Dzubas, Kofi Kayiga, Gyorgy Kepes, Roger Kizik, Lawrence Kupferman, John McNamara, Rob Moore, Maud Morgan, David Ortins, Katherine Porter, Paul Shakespear, Bill Thompson, Irene Valincius
Ahmed Abdalla, Laylah Ali, Ambreen Butt, Frank Egloff, Ellen Gallagher, Anne Harris, Colleen Kiely, Annette Lemieux, Catherine McCarthy, Tabitha Vevers, Lucy White, Richard Yarde
Against the Grain: The Second Generation of Boston Expressionism.
University of New Hampshire, Art Gallery, Oct 28 - Dec 17, 2000
"The Boston art scene at mid-century spawned a diverse group of artists whose interest in figurative representation became manifest in works with an emotional intensity and expressive style. . ."
"Paul ... started playing guitar and harmonica at the age of thirteen. 'I was pre Elvis and smelled a racial rat when covers of blues and R&B tunes were becoming hits by these white wimps like Pat Boone. I had band fantasies when the groups started coming out of England. I was running a frame shop for the Child's Gallery on Newbury Street from 1962-65 and met Steve Bladd who was framing for Boris Mirski's Bunnell Frame Shop. (Boris's son, Mark, a regular of Coffee Corner, was known to his peers as 'Bonnie Prince Junkie.') That was around 1964...'"
An interview of Boris Mirski conducted by Robert F. Brown for the Archives of American Art. Mirski discusses the creative life of Jews in general and briefly touches upon his own background and career as an art dealer. Transcript: available for use in AAA's Washington, D.C. office and through interlibrary loan. Repository Loc: Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. 20560
Karl E Fortess taped interviews with artists (1963-1985) 268 interviews
recorded on 205 audio cassettes - tapes also available at Boston Uni-
versity in the Fine and Applied Arts Library and the Mugar Library.
Fortess was a painter & printmaker, b. 1907 in Belgium; died in 1993.
