Introduction
One among the artistic legends of the modern art is Louis Lozowick who was a well acknowledged as a Precisionist artist and an Art Deco. It is to be noted that the legacy of Louis Lozowick still lives within the artistic parameters of fine arts and experimentations with form and mode of artistic expressions. As an immigrant from Russia it was a great challenge for him to establish in the United States. It is no wonder that he was extremely successful in this as his life proves quite well enough. In the golden span of 50 years of his career he shaped streamline, urban inspired monochromatic lithographs, etc. He is undoubtedly one of the greatest artists of the 20th century with a profound influence on his surroundings. He was a true genius and this study would reflect the nature of his genius (Marquardt 2005).
Lozowick’s life and time
In the year 1892 Louis Lozowick was born in Ludvinovka, a state in Ukraine, an Eastern European country, bordered the countries of Belarus to the north, Russia to the north-east, Moldova and Romania to the south-west and Hungary, Slovakia and Poland to the west, the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea happily forms the southern border of the country. Though that phase of time had witnessed an era of disputes, conflicts and power play in Ukraine, but that time also witnesses the birth of a legend Louis Lozowick. In 1904, when he was twelve years old, he was admitted in Kiev Art School. From 1904-1906, for two years he remained there to attended art classes (Marquardt 2005).
From the year 1906 – 1919, in a span of thirteen years he Attended art school, after completion of his schooling he joined a college. From 1912 to 1914 he studied in New York Nation Academy of design. Later after he finished college he also served in the army. Being a born artist, art flowed in this blood, the quest of art related knowledge and information of the developments in the field of art motivated him more than anything (Harnsberger 2004).
Thus he traveled all over the United States. In 1919 he came back to Europe. First he visited Paris and later in the year 1920 he left for Berlin and lived there for three years. In the same year, at the age of twenty eight he embarked on Machine Ornament series relating applied design that reveal the contemporaneous industrial milieu of the twenties. With in the short span of five years from 1919 to 1924 Louis Lozowich dwelled and traveled the entire Europe. He resided mostly in the places like Pars, Moscow and Berlin. In the year 1924 he again returned to United States. In the year 1926 he designed the stage sets for Georg Kaiser’s play ‘gas’. His work reflected his range of interests and his versatility.
Louis Lozowich complete his first prints in the year 1927, which were well accepted in both United States of America and Europe. He also participated in Machine Age Exhibition in New York. Later in the same year Carl Zigrosser of the Weythe Gallery encouraged him to recommence lithography. During the Depression in 1940 he made several wall paintings and prints for the WPA. ”In the year 1943 Louis Lozowich finally settled in New Jersey where he continued with his work of making prints and painting” (Marquardt 2005). Generally his art reflected the human condition, which being the invariable theme of his art and an enduring attraction towards the beauty of nature become more frequently visible in his later pieces of art. In the year 1973 he passed away leaving behind him a rich collection of his paintings and designs and much more (Joffe 1981).
Reflection of artistic genius
Louis Lozowik was one among the initial campaigners of applied design in United States of America, which produced an impression of the contemporaneous industrial milieu during the twenties. He was greatly influenced by Russian and European artists, especially with ultra modern way of thinking. He had a close contact with them first in Paris and afterward in Berlin and then in Moscow from middle of the year 1920 to end of 1923. His hypothesis of applied design resulted from his association with Russian and European artists. He came across Hungarian, French and Russian artists who operated technological inventions, took up their industrial allied hypothesis of rationalism, exactitude and standardization as the premise of a modern machine esthetic, promoted fusion of art with industry and applied design (Joffe 1981).
The topic of machine age introduced by him in his work is an incorporation these ideas. Some wall paintings painted by him portraying the images of American landscapes and urban life of people living and working in United States of America are murals of Seattle made in 1927, Chicago in 1923, Pittsburgh in 1923 and Cleveland in 1926. The subjects which generally formed the theme of his work are Botanies, Cityscape and City Views, Figure, Floral Still Life, Genre (Human Activity), Industry, Landscape, National Parks, New York City View, Portrait, Snow scene, Still Life, Townscape, etc. Louis used Charcoal’ Fresco, Graphite or Pencil, Ink Drawing (Pen and Ink), Mixed-Media or Multi-Media, Oil, Printmaking Specialty and Watercolors as the medium of painting (Marquardt 2005). The murals and paintings produced by Louis Lozowik not only displays the competence, intelligence and ideas of the painter himself, but at the same time depicts economic scenario, level of urbanization, structure of society, day to day living conditions of people living or immigrants working to earn their livelihood in United States of America. Thus his art portrays the real picture of United States in twentieth century.
Louis Lozowik used to produce visible contrasts between wide stretches of pure white and vast regions of velvety shadows with the application of lithograph stone. In the year 1925, the famous Lithograph New York, designed by Louis Lozowik brought a new era in monochromatic Lithography. Lozowich complete his first prints in the year 1927, which were well accepted in both United States of America and Europe. He also participated in Machine Age Exhibition in New York. Later in the same year Carl Zigrosser of the Weythe Gallery encouraged him to recommence lithography. In the year 1929 he created Tanks No. 1, and later he has created City on a Rock —Cohoes, both of these master pieces of prints are now put in safekeeping in British Museum in London, England. Another tour de force created by the legend himself, the Storm Over Manhattan in the year 1936 is now kept in Fine Art Museums San Francisco, CA, US (Harnsberger 2004).
Impact on art and culture
In 1920s, American art had integrated a substantial quantity of metaphors of the contemporary technology, such as the bridges, the sky scrapers, grain elevators and several other machines, the emblem of a modern industrial era, or better said the machine age, became a believe able fact in United States. The manner in which these metaphors are portrayed communicates a festivity of the appearance of the urban atmosphere and both living conditions and standards of living of people dwelling and working in urban vicinity of United States (Marquardt 2005).
This urban buoyancy, which can largely be put in plain words as an affirmative reliance in the human power and in man’s self esteem to achieve a better enjoin on his sphere of influence, is articulated in well thought out, series of geometric structures extracted from the metaphors of the urban environment, and fashioned with the instrument of imagination within the factory of mind. Among all other painters of that era who tinted images of urban vicinity and urban life as the themes of their paintings sanguinely Louis Lozowick was the most eloquent, say it destiny or politics he is also the most disregarded one. A component of Lozowick’s papers, an unpublished autobiography composed by the legend in the later years of his life, has of late been acquired depicts the accomplishments of American art and industrial designing in 1920s (Harnsberger 2004).
Both his art and writings of 1920s articulate a very cogent view of his optimistic way of thinking towards the urban environment, specially related to United States, in that era. In the present day world of prevailing dynamism, that is moving from progress to greater progress, or better said beauty to higher beauty in an endless motion, underneath all ostensible pandemonium and bewilderment, the trend which dominates America, is it’s demonstration of orderliness and maintenance, which display their external mark and at the same time symbolize the inflexible geometry of the cities of United States, in its smoke trails, in it’s analogous car tracks, and its streets, its factories and the its bridges and its gas tanks, by making use of the underscoring mechanical configuration, the artist could generate a new appearance of optimism and this was highly influential in the art and culture of his time (Marquardt 2005).
Conclusion
In conclusion it could be well stated that Louis Lozowick was an excellent Painter, a skilled lithographer and an illustrator, esteemed as one among the best lithographers of the twentieth century. He was well known for his profound geometric portrayal of urban life and territorial landscape of America. His career of fifty years contains varying shades of diversity. At a same time he was a renowned Illustrator, Mural Painter, Painter, Printmaker and a Graphic Artist. Among all other painters of that era who tinted images of urban vicinity and urban life as the themes of their paintings sanguinely Louis Lozowick was the most eloquent, say it destiny or politics he is also the most disregarded one. He was a genius in real sense, a name to be noted in golden words on the pages of history.
References
Harnsberger, R. (2004). Ten precisionist artists. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Joffe, H. (1981). Louis Lozowick: the creative artist as social critic. New York: City College of New York.
Marquardt, V. (2005). Survivor from a dead age: the memoirs of Louis Lozowick. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.