Adolph and Joshua Rosenblatt

Opening Reception: Saturday, November 10, 4 – 6 pm.

This event is FREE and open to the public.

Gallery Hours: Tues – Fri 12 – 5 pm, Sat 12 – 4 pm

Adolph Rosenblatt’s ceramic works celebrate people in their everyday lives – from the diner cook flipping eggs, the customer at the lunch counter, to a young student learning to draw. They also capture a sense of a place – depicting the house on the hill or the giant oak tree in the neighborhood – as well as capturing significant and dramatic moments from news headlines. Adolph Rosenblatt passed in February of 2017 at the age of 83. At that time Jim Higgins from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote “Rosenblatt started out painting two-dimensionally, but with a palette knife rather than brushes. The thickness of those paintings led him to sculpting in beeswax, then casting in bronze. When the cost of bronze prompted him to look for an alternative, he took inspiration from his sons’ schoolboy projects and began working in clay. But he retained a painter’s passionate concern with color.”  Milwaukee Sentinel art critic Dean Jensen wrote in 1982: “The longer one studies Rosenblatt’s clay works … the more they suggest Expressionist pictures that somehow left the canvas and took on a third dimension.

Adolph Rosenblatt was born in New Haven, CT, 1933. He earned his BFA from Yale School of Art and Architecture in 1956. While at Yale he studied with art world luminaries Josef Albers, James Brooks, and Bernard Chaet. He was a beloved and celebrated Professor of Art at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee for over 30 years. He had numerous solo exhibitions throughout the country, most recently “Moments & Markers”, a major retrospective exhibit at the Jewish Museum, Milwaukee. Other solo shows include exhibitions at Lill Street Gallery, Chicago; Tibor de Nagy Gallery, NY; Anderson Art Museum, Kenosha, WI; Milwaukee Art Museum, Haggerty Art Museum, Marquette University Gallery of Wisconsin Art; Charles Allis Art Museum; and Peltz Gallery, all in Milwaukee, WI. His work was included in group exhibitions at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, RI; Yale School of Design Gallery, New Haven, CT; Forum Gallery, New York, NY; Kohler Art Center, Sheboygan, WI; Los Angeles Museum of Science and Industry; Objects Gallery, Chicago, IL; Tibor de Nagy Gallery, NY; Dean Jensen Gallery, and Peltz Gallery, both in Milwaukee, WI. His awards include Wisconsin Arts Board Grant, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Research Award, Midwest Arts Fellowship. In 2013 he was given a Wisconsin Visual Art Lifetime Achievement Award. His work is in the collections of the Library of Congress, Ft Wayne Museum of Art, Carlisle Museum of Art, Williamstown Museum, and Milwaukee Art Museum.

Joshua Rosenblatt, son of Adolph, often works in a series, building on a theme by drawing from life, which is later expanded and completed in his studio. His most recent works are charcoal on paper drawings that record his day-to-day life experiences. His work as Director of Collections and Exhibitions Preparation at the Whitney Museum in NYC often finds him traveling to install exhibitions throughout the US, Europe, Russia, and Asia. His travels resulted in a series of work observing people in public spaces, such as airport terminals, and another set of drawings depicting hotel room interiors. Other themes developed through observing the changing light and shadows on an exterior wall of his home over the course of several years, views from his daily commute to work, as well the view through his car window. His reflections of seemingly “mundane” places, be it from business travel, or walks through his neighborhood, celebrate the easily lost details of how light, reflections, patterns, and human gestures, create a unique mood and sense of place. Much like his father, Joshua’s drawings, ranging from big and bold to light and delicate, share a compassion for humanity in their sensitivity in depicting people, recognizing the nuance of places, and much that is overlooked in a “busy” world.

Joshua Rosenblatt earned his BFA from SUNY Purchase in 1986. Recent exhibitions include his third solo show at The RE Institute in Millerton, NY, a 2000 square foot exhibition space, where he displayed a number of large-scale drawings. His work has been included in group exhibitions at Brooklyn Cider House, The Williamsburg Art and Historical Center, Shim, Paper Box, Brooklyn Fireproof, Arthelix – all located in Brooklyn, NY; Charles Allis Art Museum, Gallery of Wisconsin, J.C.C. Gallery, all located in Milwaukee, WI; White Box, New York, NY; One Mile Gallery, Kingston, NY; and Portland Gallery of Art, Portland, ME. He lives and works in Astoria, NY.

While we feature here the work of these two members of the Rosenblatt family, this is a family of accomplished creative poets and painters: Suzanne, Adolph’s wife, and Joshua’s mother, is a poet and visual artist; Adolph’s daughter Sarah is a poet; Eli, Joshua’s twin brother, is also a painter. The family also has close ties to Lake George, having vacationed in the region for many years.

This exhibition is funded in part by The Alfred Z. Solomon Charitable Trust, Adirondack Studios, The Community Exchange Foundation, and the New York State Council on The Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.