Image
2. Untitled (Darogle Aine), 1959 Ink & watercolor on paper 17 x 13.5" Gift of the artist
PAST
THE DRAWINGS OF SAUL BOLASNI
Nov 17 - Jan 23, 2010
At the age of twenty, Saul Bolasni, having had less than a year at the Cleveland Institute of Art, packed a roll of drawings and bought a bus ticket to New York. His immediate goal was to become a designer for Radio City Music Hall. That plan did not come to fruition, but Saul did very soon find work as an illustrator for magazines, especially for The New Yorker.
Saul also began to study dance after arriving in the city and landed jobs as a dancer in shows on Broadway while continuing to work as a free lance illustrator. In addition to The New Yorker , his illustrations appeared in Town and Country , Vogue , and Harpers . In 1942 Saul’s drawing of a Victorian dowager decorating an egg graced the cover of the Easter issue of The New Yorker .
A portrait of Lotte Lenya by Bolasni is in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington; theater designs in the Museum of The City New York; and costume illustrations in the archive of the Fashion Institue of Technology.
In the 1960s Saul met Richard Taddei at a life drawing salon run by Edward Melcarth. Both of these artists are represented in the collection of the Leslie/Lohman Gay Art Foundation and in the current show SELDOM SEEN . Saul’s portraits of these artists are included in NEVER SEEN,which is part of a group of 56 drawings and paintings that the artist donated in April 2009 and is being exhibited for the first time.
Today, the young man who came to New York from Ohio is still enjoying life in the big city.
– Rob Hugh Rosen
Related
PAST
SELDOM SEEN: Never or rarely seen works from the permanent collection
Nov 17 - Jan 23, 2010
more
PAST
LESBIANS SEEING LESBIANS: Building Community in Early Feminist Photography
Sep 14 - Dec 22, 2011
more
PAST
Nude In Public: Sascha Schneider: Homoeroticism and the Male Form circa 1900
Sep 20 - Dec 08, 2013
more
PAST
MEDIUM OF DESIRE: An International Anthology of Photography and Video
Dec 18 - Mar 27, 2016
more
PAST
RUBBISH AND DREAMS: The Genderqueer Performance Art of Stephen Varble
Sep 29 - Jan 27, 2019
more
PAST
ROBERT GIARD (1939-2002) Particular Voices: Portraits of Gay & Lesbian Writers
Apr 25 - May 20, 2020
more
