Balcomb Greene

Art Brokerage: Balcomb Greene American Artist: b. 1904-1990. Balcomb Greene's art education did not officially begin until he was in his late twenties. As an undergraduate student Balcomb Greene majored in philosophy at Syracuse University. He discovered art during his senior year of college on a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art where he met his future wife, Gertrude Glass. In 1926 they were married and towards the end of 1926 Balcomb and Gertrude Greene went to Europe so that Balcomb could study psychology at the University of Vienna. The pair then moved back to New York City, where Balcomb Greene continued his studies at Columbia before accepting a teaching position in English Literature at Dartmouth College. In 1931 the Greenes moved to Paris. Inspired by the avant-garde art circles with which Gertrude associated, Balcomb Greene enrolled at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and acquired additional art training through independent study. Balcomb and Gertrude Greene returned to New York in 1933 fully committed to abstract art. Balcomb Greene began writing articles promoting abstraction in Art Front, the publication of the Artists' Union. During 1935 and 1936 he served as editor for Art Front while also writing for the newspapers Broadway Brevities and Graft. The establishment of the Works Progress Administration in 1935 allowed Greene to earn income from his art. In 1937 he worked on the abstract murals for the Williamsburg Housing Project in Brooklyn and designed a stained glass window for the Bronx School of Arts and Sciences. In 1939 he painted a mural for the Hall of Medicine at the New York World's Fair. Balcomb Greene was an active participant in the American Abstract Artists and was elected its first president. He also helped to write the group's charter and published many essays advancing their cause. Greene was one of the first artists to remove the artist's presence conveyed through brush work by spraying pigment through stencils onto his canvases with an air gun.. Listings wanted.