Bird Watcher
| Artist | John Graham (American, 1881–1961) |
|---|---|
| Title | Bird Watcher |
| Date | 1941 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | Overall: 25 1/4 x 20 1/4 in. (64.1 x 51.4 cm) Framed: 26 1/4 × 21 1/4 in. (66.7 × 54 cm) |
| Credit Line | Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University |
| Accession Number | 69.86.3 |
| This artwork is currently off display. You may be able to see this artwork by filling out an art viewing room request. | |
An abstract semi-Cubist head composed of intersecting, sharply angled lines. The palette of the piece is predominantly red, black, yellow, green, and pink.
Born to a family of Polish aristocrats living in Russia, John Graham (born Ivan Dambrowsky) initially encountered modernist art at the home of Sergei Shchukin, an important Moscow collector. Fleeing the Russian Revolution, Graham immigrated to the United States in 1920. Here, he became a crucial link between modernist artists in Paris and New York. His own paintings reflect numerous stylistic influences, from abstraction and Cubism to realism and neoclassicism. Bird Watcher, a cubistic portrait of sorts, contains a sense of the fantastic or mysterious that also aligns it with Surrealism.
Provenance research is ongoing for this and many other items in the Eskenazi Museum of Art permanent collection. For more information about the provenance of this artwork, please contact the department curator with specific questions.
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"Bird Watcher | Collections Online." Collections Online. Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University, 2025. https://artmuseum.indiana.edu/collections-online/browse/object.php?number=69.86.3