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About Bernard Gussow:
Russian-born Gussow was trained at both the Art Students League and the National Academy of Design; in addition he studied under Bonnat at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. His first claim to fame seems to have been exhibiting two works at the Armory Show (Movement and Figures). Gussow exhibited at the Society of Independent Artists between 1917 and 1934 and at Salons of America in the 1930s. By that time he had moved from abstract compositions to recognizable urban subjects. The Whitney Museum, for example, has his Subway Stairs. He even participated in the Federal Art Project, contributing a post office mural (Recreation Hours) in East Rochester, NY.
The figures in this painting might owe something to his contemporary Max Weber, who used similar simplified, mask-like faces. Or he may have gone directly to the Blue Rider Group or German Expressionists such as Heckel who were interested in "primitive" figures in landscapes. Weber also painted gently curving, cylindrical trees such as these.
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Paintings by Bernard Gussow:
| Figures Among Trees |
| Oil on canvas: 30 x 25 in. |
| signed: lower center |
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Click Picture to Enlarge
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