Charles Cajori

Untitled, 2006

Solarplate Monoprint

Image size: 10 3/4" x 9"

Paper size: 16 1/4" x 12 1/2"

Estimated value $4800

Printed at CCP by Anthony Kirk

Charles Cajori (1921-2013) Cajori, as he was called by family and friends, was a second-generation Abstract Expressionist with a passion for the figure and what he called the "swift continuum of space." He keenly focused on the ideas about perception and the way we as humans are encompassed by the environment we found ourselves in. Thus the figure-always female, for Cajori-was activated by our vivid experience of occupying a section of life. Cajori drew from the model all his life. He drew about once a week in his studio, hiring people with whom he often developed friendships. He exhibited those drawings along with the paintings and sometimes mixed-media inventions. He relished working large and could work on paintings over a long period of time, sometimes going back in to them long after declaring them "finished." He lived his life as an artist, preferring the studio to any other place. He was a highly regarded painter, and greatly admired teacher.

Cajori attended Colorado Springs Art Center in 1939 and the Cleveland Art School from 1940-42. He was drafted in 1942, and spent four years in the US Air Force. Upon his discharge, he went to Columbia University on the G.I. Bill and studied there with Jack Heliker. He attended the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture of in the summers of 1947 and 1948.[2]

Early on Cajori discovered New York's downtown scene, and began attending gatherings at the Cedar Tavern and the panels at the fabled Eighth Street Club. He became especially close to Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline, and in 1952 he joined with Lois Dodd, Angelo Ippolito, William King and Fred Mitchell to found the Tanager Gallery on East 10th St. In 1950 he began his teaching career at Notre Dame University in Maryland, and by 1956 he was teaching at The Cooper Union. He was awarded a Fulbright Grant to Italy in 1959. After returning to the states, he resumed his life in New York. In 1959-60, he taught at the University of California at Berkeley, where he regularly joined Richard Diebenkorn and Elmer Bischoff in figure drawing sessions.[4]

In 1964, joining with former students of Pratt Institute and several artists including Mercedes Matter, Sidney Geist, Georgio Spaventa, and Esteban Vicente, he founded the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture. He was to teach at the school for the remainder of his active years. For 20 years he taught also at Queens College, and was a visiting artist at numerous other schools, including Yale University, Dartmouth College and Cornell University. He retired from full-time teaching in 1986 to devote his time to painting and drawing.

In addition to a Fulbright grant, Cajori was awarded a Distinction in the Arts by Yale University, a Longview Foundation Purchase Award, a Ford Foundation Purchase Award, several awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (the Jimmy Ernst Award, the Arts and Letters Award, and three Childe Hassam Purchase Awards), the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Grant, several awards from the National Academy of Design (the Henry Ward Ranger Fund Purchase Award, the Ralph Fabri Prize, and four Benjamin Altman Prizes) and a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 1982 he was elected as an Academician of the National Academy of Design. Cajori's work is represented in numerous public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum, the Whitney Museum, the Denver Art Museum, the Walker Art Center, the Weatherspoon Art Museum, the Arkansas Art Center, the Honolulu Art Academy and the National Academy of Design.