Maurice Becker
Russian American, (1889-1975)

watercolor on paper
Hand signed lower left.

Biography from Rachael Cozad Fine Art:
Maurice Becker (Russian-born American, 1889-1975)

Maurice Becker, a radical social reformer and prolific painter, is most well-known for his political cartoons from the 1910s-20s, and for American socialist publications including The Masses and The Liberator. Born in Nijni-Novgorod, Russia, Becker, the son of Jewish parents, emigrated with his family in 1892 to the Jewish community of the Lower East Side in New York City. His older sister, Helen Tamiris is known as a pioneer of modern dance, and his brother, Sam Becker, was a sculptor.

Becker was educated in the New York public schools, and after graduating high school, worked in a clothing factory. He also took night classes in bookkeeping and art and later honed his skills as a sign painter. From 1908-15, Becker studied with the influential Ashcan artist Robert Henri at the Art Students League. (His painting studies took place at night so that he could hold down a variety of odd day jobs.) At the young age of 24, Becker exhibited alongside celebrated artists such as Picasso, Cezanne, Kandinsky, Braque and Van Gogh at the famous Armory Show in 1913.

Around this time, Becker's work became more infused with political and social activism, and he joined other foreign-born artists objecting to social injustices of the time including Russian-born brothers Raphael and Moses Soyer, David Burliuk, and Ben Shahn. From 1911-20, Becker was most recognized for his black-and-white political drawings and cartoons which he would contribute to numerous left-wing periodicals such as The Daily Worker, The Toiler, and Revolt, among others. He was also on the art staffs of the New York Tribune and the New York Call, and in 1917 was commissioned by the Scripps Newspaper Association as an artist-correspondent to the newly purchased Virgin Islands.

In 1918, Becker married the active Socialist Dorothy Baldwin. Later that same year, Becker became a conscientious objector to America's involvement in World War I and fled to Mexico to avoid the draft. He was arrested upon his return to the United States in 1919 and was sentenced to 25 years of hard labor at Ft. Leavenworth. (However, after serving 4 months, Becker was released when President Wilson declared amnesty for conscientious objectors.) From 1921-1923, Becker returned to Mexico where he worked as an artist for an English-language magazine while also devoting most of his time to painting.

Through his lifetime, Becker remained a strong anti-war advocate in opposition to American capitalism, and an active member of the Communist Party USA and the communist run organization, Artist's Front to Win the War.

Becker's varied subjects represent his Socialist political views as well as his extensive travels in the United States and Mexico. He had solo shows in New York at the Whitney Museum, 1916; the J.B. Neumann Gallery, 1924-31; the Whitney Studio Club, 1924-28; the Delphic Studios, 1930; the New School for Social Research, 1932; and at the Museum of Modern Art exhibition "Murals by American Painters and Photographers," 1932. His works were also exhibited at the MacBeth Gallery, New York, 1942-1945; the John Heller Gallery, New York, 1951; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the National Academy of Design; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and others.

Becker's work can be found in several notable museum collections including the New York Historical Society; the Philadelphia Historical Society; the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, Virginia; the Ringling Museum, Sarasota, Florida; the Norfolk Museum of Arts and Sciences, the University of Michigan, the Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York; as well as a large mural for the AFL-CIO, Local 65 (The American Federation of Labor - Congress of Industrial Organizations).

Becker appeared in the 1970-1971 edition of Who's Who in America and he was the recipient of an American Federation Arts Award.

He died in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

  • Dimensions: 15'H x 14"W (Sight), 21"H x 20"W (Mat)
  • Medium: watercolor on paper

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