Reuben nakian biography
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Oral history interview with Reuben Nakian, 1981 June 9-17
Transcript
Preface
The following oral history transcript is the result of a tape-recorded interview with Reuben Nakian on June 9, 1981. The interview took place in Stamford, CT, and was conducted by Avis Berman for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
[Transcriber’s note: RN’s transcribed words man him appear on the written page as gruff, irritable, and even unkindly. The timbre of his voice, however, is usually at odds with the words.]
Interview
[Tape 1, side A (all tapes are 45 minutes per side)]
DON ROSS: DON ROSS (Nakian’s assistant)
RUEBEN NAKIAN: inom don’t care anymore what anyone thinks. It doesn’t matter, you know, what I do or what I säga. I just try to keep busy. Even my art’s, you know. . . . I do things just to keep busy. inom don’t give a goddamn if. . . . I don’t even care to go to the Metropolitan Museum, and that was like a sacred place for me, and that meant, you know, I don
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Reuben Nakian
American, 1897-1986
Reuben Nakian, born August 10, 1897 in College Point, New York enjoyed a long and distinguished career, maintaining his innovative spirit and creativity over more than seventy years, constantly rethinking and revising his modes of sculptural expression and exploring and mastering new media: marble, clay, plaster, metal, paper, and, in his last years, styrofoam.
Nakian received honorary doctorates from the Universities of Nebraska (1969) and Bridgeport (1972); medals from the Philadelphia College of Art (1967) and the American Academy/National Institute of Arts and Letters (1973); and the Skowhegan Medal for Sculpture (1983). He was the recipient of awards from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts (1979), Brandeis University (1977), and the Rhode Island School of Design (1979).
Nakian was a guest of honor at the “Famous Artists’ Evening” at the White House (1966), and the Smithsonian Institution produced a
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Reuben Nakian
American sculptor
Reuben Nakian (August 10, 1897, College Point, New York – December 4, 1986, Stamford, Connecticut) was an American sculptor and teacher of Armenian extraction. His works' recurring themes are from Greek and Roman mythology. Noted works include Leda and the Swan, The Rape of Lucrece, Hecuba, and The Birth of Venus. He was also commissioned to create portraits of Roosevelt's cabinet in the 1930s.
Biography
[edit]Early life
[edit]Reuben Nakian was born on August 10, 1897, in College Point, New York. In 1915, Nakian studied at the Independent School of Art in New York City--previously known as the Robert Henri School--with Homer Boss and A.S. Baylinson. Later he studied at the Art Students League of New York and was apprenticed to Paul Manship.[1]
Career
[edit]He met and befriended painters Arshile Gorky and Willem de Kooning in the 1930s and Marsden Hartley and Marcel Duchamp in the 1940s. Poet Frank O'Hara was th