VINTAGE 1960s Hand Signed Frank Kleinholz - Come, Let us light the Menorah - Judaica Hannukah Chanukah Art Print.

He also includes the ceremonial aspects of family life in his presentations of “reality”. Come Let Us Light the Menorah, 1960 portrays a family united by a tradition of religious ritual and symbol

Frame measures 32" by 24" inches and us in good condition as displayed in the photo gallery. Shipped with USPS Priority Mail.

Frank Kleinholz
20th Century Paintings
(NY, 1901 - 1987)

A Brooklyn native, Frank Kleinholz worked first as a lawyer, but began to study painting and printmaking in the ‘30s, giving up his law practice in 1945 to concentrate on his art. His mother ran a delicatessen to support the immediate family (including Kleinholz’s blind father) and the extended family of relatives that immigrated to America. Kleinholz helped out as a child, selling newspapers and running errands for local businesses. He graduated from Fordham Law School and practiced insurance law before turning his attention full time to painting and printmaking. His early experiences influenced his artistic viewpoint, and in later years he prided himself on being considered an “artist of the working class and an activist in a wide variety of political and social struggles.” His work included paintings, black and white prints in a variety of media, hand-colored serigraphs, and full-color printed serigraphs. Kleinholz’s work is realist, although critics have labeled it “expressionist”, referring to the use of color similar to that of the German Expressionists, or “impressionist”, referring to the images in his paintings not being detailed efforts to recreate the scenes depicted. The influence of the Depression and the World Wars were strongly evident in the somber expressions, low key palette, and muted tones of some of his early work (1940s to 1950s). Writing about his work in a retrospective, a critic noted: Kleinholz believes that an artist’s social realism must include the joyful, the whimsical, and other aspects of meaningful events in the lives of ordinary people. Much of his work is based on images of children at play, as in Bravadoes, 1944 and images of people shown in the city streets as in Strolling, 1969. He also includes the ceremonial aspects of family life in his presentations of “reality”. Come Let Us Light the Menorah, 1960 portrays a family united by a tradition of religious ritual and symbol. American Icon, 1968, portraying a butcher and his family members, documents the importance of the small family business in American life. The Sun is the Old Man’s Last Lover, 1971, is a poignant visual meditation on the problem of aging and the loss of friends and companions that have in the past provided support and given meaning to life. Kleinholz was first attracted to the works of Cézanne, Degas, and Daumier. He enrolled in classes with artists Alex Dobkin, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, and Sol Wilson between 1936 and 1940. He was also enrolled in the American Art School beginning in 1939. Like Biddle, he studied the murals of Rivera, Siqeiros, and Orozco. “He favored social communication through art over the pursuit of any startling or new inventions of style. The artist freely acknowledges his own technical limitations, especially in drawing, while relying on color and painterly ‘architectural structures’ and his ability to inject into his paintings genuine feeling for humanity to accomplish his ends.” Kleinholz appeared in national museum exhibitions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s “Artists for Victory” exhibition (1942); the Phillips Gallery’s “Trends in American Painting”, Washington D.C. (1942); the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts Annual Exhibition, Philadelphia (1942); the Whitney Museum of American Art Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Art (1943-1944); the Chicago Art Institute (1944); the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s “American Painting Today” (1950); the National Academy Annual, New York (1965) and many others. Exhibitions of Kleinholz’s work continued in Florida and the Port Washington, New York area into the 1970s and 1980s. Kleinholz’s work during this time period tended towards family themes, often inclusive of children. His palette lightened at this time with the use of high key primary colors. His later paintings, from around 1979, feature a variety of subjects, including several that return to sparse street scenes similar to his work of the 1940s and a new subject of the struggle to “rise to the top” and the hope and promise of America.