Esphyr Slobodkina was born in the Siberian town of Chelyabinsk on September 22nd, 1908. She grew up in Harbin, Manchuria (China), where she studied art and architecture. She immigrated to the United States on a student visa at the age of 21 and enrolled at the National Academy of Design in New York City.
In 1937, Esphyr became one of the founding members of American Abstract Artists (AAA), along with her then-husband, Ilya Bolotowsky. She was the organization’s first secretary and later served as president and treasurer, as well as its bibliographer. She was a regular exhibitor in AAA annual shows and a close associate of the “Park Avenue Cubists”: George L.K. Morris, Suzy Frelinghuysen, Charles Green Shaw and A.E. Gallatin. In 1940, Gallatin, who owned two of her works, organized her first one-person exhibition at his Gallery of Living Art.
Esphyr took her responsibility as a children’s book author seriously. Her second children’s book Caps for Sale, was published in 1940. It sold over 2,000,000 copies and has been translated into many languages. In her memoir she wrote, “The verbal patterns and the patterns of behavior we present to children in these lighthearted confections are likely to influence them for the rest of their lives. These aesthetic impressions, just like the moral teachings of early childhood, remain indelible.”
In spite of her success as a children’s author, Esphyr’s love of abstract art never wavered. Most mornings as the sun rose, she could be found working at an old drafting table nearly buried with tubes of paints, tools and various objects. Many titles of her work as well as the pieces themselves, such as “The Broken Promise Of Marital Bliss” or “Our Great Big Happy Condominium In The Sky” evidence her exemplary wit and sense of humor.
Slobodkina’s art has received high acclaim. Her paintings, sculptures and literary works can be found in numerous public and private collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum. Corcoran Gallery of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington, NY (where she has a permanent wing), Hillwood Art Museum, Long Island University, Brookville, NY, New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, NJ, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA.
At age 90, Esphyr designed a mini museum in Glen Head, Long Island, NY (through her Slobodkina Foundation) as a place where guests can visit and view more than 500 works of art, her handmade dolls and jewelry, as well as her complete collection of children’s storybooks, including some original illustrations. Also available for viewing are the beautiful polychrome designs on silk, Esphyr’s collection of artifacts, letters, and memoirs from her travels, and shopping expeditions and a smattering of favorite pieces by other artists that Esphyr treasured. Ideally functioning both as a museum and a reading room for children, the charitable Slobodkina Foundation actively preserves the legacy of her prolific, unusually multifaceted career.
www.slobodkina.org
