George Tooker
American
(Brooklyn, New York, 1920 - 2011, Hartland, Vermont)
George Tooker was born in Brooklyn and grew up in Bellport, Long Island where, at age seven, his parents arranged for him to begin studying art with a long-time family friend and neighbor Malcolm Fraser, who had trained in Europe. Tooker graduated from the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts in 1938, and continued his education at Harvard University, where he graduated in 1942 with a degree in English literature. When the United States entered World War II, he enlisted in the Marine Corps Officer Candidate School but was soon discharged due to a medical condition. In the spring of 1943, he enrolled at the Art Students League in New York, where he studied with Kenneth Hayes Miller and Reginald Marsh, who introduced him to the medium of egg tempera.
In 1944, Tooker met the artist Paul Cadmus at the League, and Cadmus furthered Tooker’s interest in egg tempera. It was through Cadmus that Tooker was introduced to a dynamic group of gay progressives and allies in New York City, including the artists Jared French and his wife Margaret Hoening, the philanthropist and co-founder of the New York City Ballet Lincoln Kirstein, and the fashion photographer George Platt Lynes. After completing his studies the following year, Tooker settled in Greenwich Village, and was soon thereafter included in the exhibition Fourteen Americans, held at the Museum of Modern Art, and subsequent exhibitions of contemporary American painting at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Carnegie Institute. He spent the spring and summer of 1949 in Europe with Cadmus, visiting the Louvre and travelling to Florence and London. These travels, in which he gathered reproductions of works that served as source material for his art, strengthened his knowledge of Renaissance art’s techniques and styles, and both were manifest in his paintings upon his return to the United States.
Tooker then established a 30-year relationship with a fellow artist, William Christopher, the couple taking up residence on West 18th Street in New York in 1951. Tooker’s career flourished, with a solo exhibition at Edwin Hewitt Gallery, and a work from that show, Subway, 1950, was acquired by the Whitney Museum of American Art. His work later entered the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, as well as the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and other American museums.
1n 1958, the couple relocated to Vermont, where Christopher taught art at Dartmouth College. During this period, both Tooker and Christopher became active participants in the Civil Rights Movement and travelled to Selma, Alabama in 1965. Each artist created paintings honoring the leaders of the movement, including Tooker’s Supper (1963) which was intended to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, now in the collection of the Memorial Art Gallery at the University of Rochester in New York.
After Christopher’s death in 1973, Tooker continued to live in Vermont, but wintered in Spain, converting to Catholicism and painting a seven-panel work, The Seven Sacraments, installed in 1981 at his parish church in Windsor, Vermont.
In 2007, Tooker received the prestigious National Medal of Arts and in 2008-2009 a solo exhibition of Tooker’s work was held at the National Academy Museum, New York, and traveled to the Pennsylvania Academy of The Fine Arts, Philadelphia, and the Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio.
American
(Brooklyn, New York, 1920 - 2011, Hartland, Vermont)
George Tooker was born in Brooklyn and grew up in Bellport, Long Island where, at age seven, his parents arranged for him to begin studying art with a long-time family friend and neighbor Malcolm Fraser, who had trained in Europe. Tooker graduated from the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts in 1938, and continued his education at Harvard University, where he graduated in 1942 with a degree in English literature. When the United States entered World War II, he enlisted in the Marine Corps Officer Candidate School but was soon discharged due to a medical condition. In the spring of 1943, he enrolled at the Art Students League in New York, where he studied with Kenneth Hayes Miller and Reginald Marsh, who introduced him to the medium of egg tempera.
In 1944, Tooker met the artist Paul Cadmus at the League, and Cadmus furthered Tooker’s interest in egg tempera. It was through Cadmus that Tooker was introduced to a dynamic group of gay progressives and allies in New York City, including the artists Jared French and his wife Margaret Hoening, the philanthropist and co-founder of the New York City Ballet Lincoln Kirstein, and the fashion photographer George Platt Lynes. After completing his studies the following year, Tooker settled in Greenwich Village, and was soon thereafter included in the exhibition Fourteen Americans, held at the Museum of Modern Art, and subsequent exhibitions of contemporary American painting at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Carnegie Institute. He spent the spring and summer of 1949 in Europe with Cadmus, visiting the Louvre and travelling to Florence and London. These travels, in which he gathered reproductions of works that served as source material for his art, strengthened his knowledge of Renaissance art’s techniques and styles, and both were manifest in his paintings upon his return to the United States.
Tooker then established a 30-year relationship with a fellow artist, William Christopher, the couple taking up residence on West 18th Street in New York in 1951. Tooker’s career flourished, with a solo exhibition at Edwin Hewitt Gallery, and a work from that show, Subway, 1950, was acquired by the Whitney Museum of American Art. His work later entered the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, as well as the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and other American museums.
1n 1958, the couple relocated to Vermont, where Christopher taught art at Dartmouth College. During this period, both Tooker and Christopher became active participants in the Civil Rights Movement and travelled to Selma, Alabama in 1965. Each artist created paintings honoring the leaders of the movement, including Tooker’s Supper (1963) which was intended to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, now in the collection of the Memorial Art Gallery at the University of Rochester in New York.
After Christopher’s death in 1973, Tooker continued to live in Vermont, but wintered in Spain, converting to Catholicism and painting a seven-panel work, The Seven Sacraments, installed in 1981 at his parish church in Windsor, Vermont.
In 2007, Tooker received the prestigious National Medal of Arts and in 2008-2009 a solo exhibition of Tooker’s work was held at the National Academy Museum, New York, and traveled to the Pennsylvania Academy of The Fine Arts, Philadelphia, and the Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio.
Artist Objects
