Description
Abraham Rattner (July 8, 1895 – February 14, 1978) was an American artist, best known for his richly colored paintings, often with religious subject matter. During World War I, he served in France with the U.S. Army as a camouflage artist.
Rattner lived in Paris from 1920 until 1940, when he returned to New York City. He became known for his rich use of color and surrealist aspects of his work, which often pertained to religion. Although while living in Paris, he had met and studied the paintings of Claude Monet, his work is generally closer to that of Georges Rouault and Pablo Picasso. During World War II, he again volunteered for camouflage service, but was able to do very little (Culkin 1980). Later, he taught at several schools, including The New School, New York (1947–55), and Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut (1952–53).
His artwork is in the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York; Art Institute of Chicago; Baltimore Museum of Art; Detroit Institute of Arts; Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Montgomery, Alabama; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia Museum of Art; Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City; Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, Gainesville, Florida; and the Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art on the campus of St. Petersburg College in Tarpon Springs, Florida. He designed the stained glass east wall which dominates the interior of the Chicago Loop Synagogue (1960), described by architectural critic Brian de Breffny as “[p]erhaps the most beautiful synagogue interior in the United States.”