Long-lived painter Abraham Harriton (1893-1986) was born in Bucharest, Romania. He studied at the National Academy of Design in New York City from 1908 to 1915 under noted artists Kenyon Cox, Emil Carlsen and George DeForest Brush. He won many awards as a student at the Academy, and became a teacher himself.

Harriton was a modernist and Social Realist who worked with the WPA in New York during the 1930's. But his work went through many phases, including influence by Albert Pinkham Ryder, and a Classicism in landscapes, portraits, figure compositions, marine paintings and allegories.

Harriton wrote a book on Renaissance masters' techniques in under-painting and glazing. His own work, though modern, reflected his traditional concerns.

Harriton received the Marjorie Peabody Waite Award of the National Institute of Arts and Letters.

He exhibited in major exhibitions, including the Panama-Pacific Worlds Fair, the National Academy of Design, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York World's Fair Exhibition of Contemporary Art, 1939, Corcoran Gallery, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Arts Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Among other museums and private collections, Harriton's work is represented in the permanent collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Hirshorn Museum, Oakland Art Museum and the Addison Gallery of American Art.

Source:
Les Krantz, "American Artists, Illustrated Survey of Leading Contemporary Artists"

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