BORIS DEUTSCH
(American, 1892-1978)

Boris Deutsch, modernist painter and muralist, was born in Krasnagorka, Lithuania on June 4, 1892. Deutsch began drawing at age five and remained a self-taught artist except for brief intervals at the Bloom Academy of Art in Riga, Latvia and the Kunstgewerbe Schule in Berlin. In 1916 he immigrated to Seattle, Washington and lived there until 1920.

Upon settling in Los Angeles, he supported himself with commercial art and set designs for movies. During the late 1930s he received several mural commissions from the WPA including Hot Springs, New Mexico Post Office, Reedley, California Post Office, and 11 murals in the Los Angeles Terminal Annex Post Office. A modernist, he specialized in Jewish genre and figures; during the last decade of his life he experimented with monotypes and other printmaking. Deutsch died in Los Angeles on January 19, 1978.

Studied

• Bloom Academy of Art, Latvia
• Kunstgewerbe Schule, Germany

Member

• California Watercolor Society
• Allied Artists of Los Angeles
  

Work

• US Post Office, Reedley, California
• US Post Office, Los Angeles Terminal Annex, California
• US Post Office, Hot Springs, New Mexico
• Palace Legion Honor
• Mills College
• Portland Museum of Art
• Los Angeles County Museum of Art
• National Museum American Art
• Carnegie Institute
• Denver Art Museum

Exhibited

• University of California, 1926, 1942
• Los Angeles Museum of Art, 1926, 1929, 1932 (prize), 1941
• East-West Gallery, San Francisco, 1929
• California Art Club, 1929
• Mills College, 1929
• Seattle Art Museum, 1930
• San Diego Fine Arts Society, 1930 (prize)
• Denver Art Museum, 1931
• Portland Museum of Art, 1931
• California Palace Legion Honor, 1931
• Dallas Museum of Fine Art, 1932
• Jacques Seligmann Gallery, 1933
• Oakland Art Gallery, 1931, 1939, 1940 (prize)
• Society of Independent Artists, 1940
• Stockton Museum of Art, 1940
• Sacramento Museum of Art, 1940
• Scripps College, 1946
• Pomona Fair, 1938
• Art Institute of Chicago, 1945
• Pepsi-Cola, 1946 (first prize)

References

• Falk, Annual Exhibition Record of the Art Institute of Chicago
• Falk, Who Was Who in American Art
• Hughes, Artists in California, 1786-1940
• Mallett, Mallet’s Index of Artists: International - Biographical
• Marlor, Society of Independent Artists Exhibition Record, 1917-1944
• McCall, California Artists, 1935 to 1956