Rosenberg & Co. is pleased to present Esphyr Slobodkina: an unbound creativity, in collaboration with the Slobodkina Foundation and LewAllen Galleries. An Unbound Creativity explores the remarkable depth and breadth of Esphyr Slobodkina’s creative output. A Russian-born author, illustrator, and pioneer of early American abstraction, Slobodkina refused to blindly adhere to one artistic movement or medium, deciding instead to forge a path uniquely her own. An unbound creativity brings together Slobodina’s paintings, collages, textiles, and works on paper, offering a comprehensive look at both the artist’s personal life and career.

Esphyr Solobodkina (1908-2002) was born in Chelyabinsk, Russia, and immigrated to New York at the age of twenty. In 1929, she enrolled at the National Academy of Design, though she quickly rejected its conservative curriculum. At the academy she met fellow artist, Ilya Bolotowsky, who became an important mentor and briefly her husband. Through Bolotowsky’s depictions of the European avant-garde, Slobodkina learned the fundamentals of modernism and began developing the planar, mechanical abstraction that would become a defining feature of her work.

A forerunner of the hard-edge painting of the 60s, her work often incorporated sharply juxtaposed planar shapes in harmonious arrangements of color and form. In 1936, she became a founding member of the American Abstract Artists group, which helped pave the way for the acceptance of abstract art in the United States, and in 1940 A.E. Gallatin held Slobodkina’s first major one-person exhibition at his influential Gallery of Living Art. At the recommendation of Alfred Barr, Peggy Guggenheim also included Slobodkina in her 1943 Exhibition by 31 women at art of the century. In 1937, she met the noted author Margaret Wise Brown, who encouraged Slobodkina to illustrate children’s stories. Slobodkina published the children’s book Caps for sale in 1940, which remains a best-selling storybook.

The exhibition will feature two sculptures by Slobodkina, allowing viewers to experience the artist’s fascination with machinery. Ann Marie Mulhearn-Sayer, President of the Slobodkina Foundation, notes: “More so than earlier works, these possess a wry, satirical edge and demonstrate an active engagement with contemporaneous social issues and political concerns.” Archival materials, including photographs of Slobodkina in her studio and early editions of some of her children's books, will provide further context to her artwork.

Though she was a celebrated artist during her lifetime, Slobodkina’s contributions to American art remained underappreciated in the decades following her death. An unbound creativity brings renewed focus to Slobodkina’s relentless creativity and celebrates the multiplicity of the artist’s work.