New Pamono Philip Krevoruck, Surrealist Composition, 1957, Oil on Board

Philip Krevoruck (1919–1999), WPA Artist

Surrealist oil on board, painted during the 1950s, in its original 1950s frame, signed in the lower right-hand corner.

Philip Krevoruck was born on 26 January 1919 in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, the youngest of four children. His older siblings were Sarah, Florence, and Saul. Krevoruck’s father, Jacob Krevoruck, was born in Russia, spoke Yiddish, and emigrated to the United States in 1903. Jacob ran a kosher butcher shop in Fitchburg, located near the synagogue, but he died only one year after Philip was born. Philip’s mother, Sophie, was also born in Russia .

Krevoruck completed four years of college before the Second World War and taught art. In the late 1930s, when he was only 20 years old, Krevoruck was employed by the WPA art programme. During this time, he lived with his sister Sarah’s family and brother-in-law, Benjamin Schweitzer.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was an ambitious employment and infrastructure programme created by President Roosevelt in 1935, during the bleakest years of the Great Depression. Over its eight years of existence, the WPA employed approximately 8.5 million Americans.

Krevoruck served in the army during the Second World War. After the war, he attained a Master’s of Arts in Education from Columbia University Teachers College, graduating in 1949. Immediately after graduation, he taught art at Haldane Central School in Cold Spring, New York, and also taught at Long Island University.

Krevoruck lived and taught in China for several years in the early 1950s, producing reverent portraits of Chinese people and culture previously unseen in the West.

After returning from China, Philip moved back to Fitchburg. In 1954, he was teaching art at the Fitchburg Art Centre, and in 1955, he taught at Leominster High School.

During the 1950s and 1960s, he exhibited his artwork on many occasions, including at the Fitchburg Art Museum. Krevoruck was well versed in a variety of extraordinary styles, including surrealism, as seen in this painting. He was also known for his WPA subjects.

Krevoruck’s work revealed a realistic portrayal of American life, exposing the true conditions of urban cities, industrial work environments, and everyday scenes of working-class Americans. His later work shifted towards expressionism, surrealism, and abstraction.

Krevoruck died on 24 March 1999 in Long Beach, New York.

Dimensions:

Framed: width 76 cm x height 66.5 cm / 5 cm depth

Unframed: height 49.5 cm x 60cm width