Edward Biberman (1904 – 1986)

Worker with Shovel (Cigarette), c. 1950, oil on masonite, signed lower right, 46 x 26 inches, titled verso, Gallery Z label verso; Exhibited: i) Exhibition of New Paintings by Edward Biberman, Chabot Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, February 16 to March 7, 1953 (see Miller, Arthur, In the Galleries, The Los Angeles Times, February 22, 1953, part IV - “Less colorful but excellently drawn and full of human notes are several large paintings of workman in such typical actions as that of the Negro ditch digger pausing for the luxury of a smoke . . . . .”); ii) Edward Biberman Revisited, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery (Barnsdall Park - Los Angeles) February 12 - April 19, 2009 (illustrated in the catalog p. 15) (see Knight, Christopher, Biberman’s Portraits of Life in the Big City, The Los Angeles Times, March , 4, 2009, pp. D1, D5 – “The social realist paintings record topical working-class subjects. Sometimes they’re straightforward, such as a laborer leaning on his shovel while taking a cigarette break.”); and iii) Lost Horizons: Mural Dreams of Edward Biberman, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, in partnership with SPARC, at the Duron Gallery (Los Angeles), May 31 - August 29, 2014 (illustrated in the catalog p. 2)

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Worker with Shovel (Cigarette) is an impressive example of Edward Biberman’s social realist paintings and provides a wonderful exploration of the artist’s ability to portray the human figure. Biberman first received artistic recognition for portraits and other figurative paintings during the late 1920s. During the 1930s and 1940s, his approach to figuration moved toward social realism and his works often explored the plight of the common person. Unlike many of his contemporaries who increasingly began to employ abstraction in the post-war period, Biberman continued to paint social realist works throughout his career and some of his best output in this genre dates from the late 1940s and early 1950s, around the time he painted this work. Biberman was a progressive, left leaning, and socially conscious artist, who portrayed the Black community with dignity and respect. His very human depiction of the worker in this painting is at the same time specific and universal. Biberman paints the detailed features of the worker, including the ripples of his muscles and veins, the power of his strong hands and every wrinkle on his face. We see the subject as a specific individual, but at the same time, the worker represents labor, in general, a subject that fascinated Biberman throughout his life. Whether depicting a Hollywood studio strike, a Labor Day parade, or the brutality of labor suppression, Biberman conveys the humanity of his workers through careful and disciplined drawing and unique coloration. These attributes drew critical praise when Worker with Shovel (Cigarette) was exhibited during Biberman’s life, as well as posthumously.

Edward Biberman was born in Philadelphia, the son of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants. His artistic career started at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts followed by three years of study in Paris, where he associated closely with Calder and Noguchi and exhibited at the Salon d'Automne, Grand Palais, in 1927 and the Salon des Independents in 1929.  Upon his return to the United States, Biberman spent time in New York City, where he showed at many of the city’s premier galleries and museums. His works were selected for several of the Museum of Modern Art’s early exhibitions of American artists, including 46 Painters and Sculptors Under the Age of 35 (1930) and Murals by American Painters and Photographers (1932). Hoping to escape the pressures of the New York art world, Biberman moved to Los Angeles in 1936 where he could be close to his family, including his film director brother, Herbert Biberman, and his sister-in-law, the Academy Award winning actress, Gale Sondergaard.

During the course of his long career, Biberman showed at the Salon d’Automne (Paris); Whitney Museum; Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Corcoran Gallery, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and dozens of other museums and galleries across the US and in Europe. Biberman completed three murals for public works projects, including his work Abbot Kinney and the Story of Venice for the Venice Post Office, which was installed for six months at LACMA in 2014. His works are in the permanent collections of more than a dozen museums, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, National Portrait Gallery (of the Smithsonian Institution), Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Butler Institute of American Art, Art Museum of the Rhode Island School of Design, and Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Several books are dedicated to Biberman’s art, as is a feature length documentary, Brush with Life: The Art of Being Edward Biberman (2007). Biberman’s art has undergone a resurgence of popularity during the past fifteen years with four solo or focused exhibitions, Edward Biberman Revisited (2009), Edward Biberman (2011-12), Lost Horizons: Mural Dreams of Edward Biberman (2014) and Edward Biberman, Abbot Kinney and the Story of Venice (2014), and representation in a number of other exhibitions, such as To Make a World: George Ault and 1940s America  at the Smithsonian Institution and other institutions (2011), Pacific Standard Time (2012), Contraption: Rediscovering California Jewish Artists (2018),Black American Portraits (2021) at LACMA, Encounters in American Realism (2022) at The Westmoreland Museum of American Art and Art for the People WPA Paintings from the Dijkstra Collection (2023) at the Crocker Art Museum (Sacramento, CA), Oceanside Museum o f Art (Oceanside, CA) and The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens (San Marino, CA).

Biberman’s brand of modernism can fairly be divided into four categories 1) precisionist urban scenes of New York and Southern California which celebrate the creations of humanity; 2) portraits which expose not only the historical context, but also the souls, of his subjects; 3) rural landscapes and still life paintings which portray the beauty of America and its flora; and 4) social realist works which explore the struggles, hopes and shortcomings of our society. Regardless of genre, Biberman had a unique sense of structure and color. His figures are at the same time specific and universal. Taken as a whole, Biberman’s body of work presents the viewer with a compelling and often daring vision of 20th century America and its art.