This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  Originally from Poland, Eugenie Baizerman was one of America’s earliest
Abstract Impressionists. Prior to immigrating to the United
States in 1910, Baizerman’s family lived in Bessarabia, a province of
Russia, and in the city of Odessa in the Russian Ukraine. The
surname she received at birth, changed to Silverman upon her arrival in
America, remains unknown.
Baizerman’s mother, an actress, and her father, a language teacher,
began nurturing her artistic skill during childhood. They
initially hired an artist to coach her individually. She was
later admitted to the Odessa Art School.
After moving to New York City, Baizerman continued her art education at
the National Art Academy of Design, followed by the Educational
Alliance. She became acquainted with Saul Baizerman, a Russian
sculptor working as model for the National Academy of Design, whom she
later married.
Eugenie Baizerman’s unique style of painting emerged from French
Impressionism and evolved into form of expression. She used the
subjects of her paintings – ordinary objects, landscapes, and figures –
as the basis for rhythmically combing thick, colorful brushstrokes in
abstracted, harmonious compositions.
A preference for working in isolation greatly affected Baizerman’s
career as an artist. Throughout her life, she was extremely
shy. Also, during most of her adulthood, she dealt with
respiratory problems caused by partially psychosomatic asthma. In
order to avoid potentially stressful situations which aggravated her
condition, she refrained from actively promoting herself and her
artwork. It was on rare occasion that she allowed the inclusion
of her work in public exhibitions. For these reasons, knowledge
of her work was kept to a minimum.
Before her death in 1949, which was attributed to her respiratory
illness, the extent of Baizerman’s public involvement in was limited to
two shows. The first, held in 1939, was a solo display. The
second was in conjunction with her husband’s sculptural work closer to
the time of her death.
Eugenie Baizerman’s artwork remained unexposed for nearly twelve years
until a collection of paintings, which had been in Saul Baizerman’s
possession prior to his death 1957, were displayed to the public.
The exhibition, held in 1961 by the Artists Gallery of New York City,
resulted in the acquisition of her work institutions including the
Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New
York.
Submitted by Jenna Wuensche, Researcher
Source: Jules Heller and Nancy G. Heller, North American Women Artists of the Twentieth Century
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Biography from Zabriskie Gallery:
| From June 13 to July 28, 2000, Zabriskie Gallery exhibited the
paintings of Eugenie Baizerman. Working in between the two world wars,
Baizerman's body of work focused primarily on the subject of
still-lifes and figurative paintings, toeing the line of abstraction
and representation. Her most notable works from the 1930's were
fresh compositions of color in which she explored the limitless
variations of limited palettes. In a style distinct from that of
any of her American contemporaries, this selection of mostly small
canvases and several large-scale paintings re-visits the artistic
legacy of Eugenie Baizerman.
Eugenie Silverman Baizerman was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1899.
Her father and mother, a linguist proftssor and an amateur actress,
respectively, encouraged her as a young girl to study painting and
drawing at the Odessa Art school, in the Caucasus. It was in this
region of Russia "where glowing fruits and flowers, nude women bathing
in the Black Sea, left intense memories, to blossom later in her art"
(Saul Baizerman). Upon entering the United States at the age of
fourteen, she enrolled at the National Academy of Design, and later the
Educational Alliance. It was the necessity of this classical
training that laid the foundation from which she was to depart from,
leaving the muddy hues behind for vibrancy and rhythm of color.
And more color, discovering with each small study or large canvas the
striking variety and endless re-combinations of two or three different
hues. "I try for two views in my painting," she would convey, "the
harmony of color-tone-movements in space -- that is the view from a
distance; and, on closer approach, how the individual strokes sing
their color conversations -- like notes of music." For the rest of her
life, and up to two days before she died of psychosomatic asthma, she
approached the act of painting with this singular vision.
Eugenie was married to the sculptor Saul Baizerman in a partnership
that lasted for over twenty years. She exhibited together with
her husband and in one-person shows during her lifetime at the Artist's
Gallery in New York. Her work is included in the permanent
collections ofthe Museum ol Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American
Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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