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BORIS DEUTSCH - INDIVIDUALIST

"Boris Deutsch was born in 1892, in the village Krasnogorka, near Riga, Russia.

"At the age of six he began to draw. When he was fourteen he was sent to the Bloom Academy at Riga where he studied for a short time. Later he went to Berlin and stayed there for three years, studying at various academies.

"In 1916 Deutsch came to America, landing in Seattle, Washington, remaining for about three years. Then he left for Los Angeles, California, where he became a naturalized American citizen.

"Never sold any of his work, nor exhibited until six years ago. His first exhibition was in Los Angeles Museum, Exposition Park, in 1926.

"Working with a limited palette, eschewing in favor of earth colors, those bright colors which tempt the artist, Boris Deutsch has developed painting with colors ground in oil into a singularly plastic instrument with which to express the ideas that uninterruptedly throng in his mind. He works at any medium, simplifying it to the point where he can think only of the thing he would say with it. He has treated forms the same way, whittling at them until inessential details no longer impede their expressiveness.

"He is seldom a complex designer but always a subtle one. When he paints a head he seems to first make a simple statement in clear line and then evoke form which is undeniably present, felt in every purposeful stroke of his brush, and yet which has shed every vestige of materiality and become a series of thought modulations translated into paint. The sharp line sets the motif and gives stability to the almost vaporous color.

"His way of painting developed during twelve years of isolation spent for the most part in flats on the east side of Los Angeles. It is a personal way which one could not mistake for that of another.

"The paintings of Boris Deutsch remain in the memory when they are no longer before the eye. His Jewish students and musicians, his heads of women and his portraits bear that lasting conviction only felt where an idea is emotionally sustained throughout the exercise of craftsmanship.

"Recognition has slowly but inevitably come to him. Collectors have sought him out, four museums own examples of his paintings and he is granted place in the front rank of Western painters.

"I believe Deutsch to be more than that. I believe him to be one of the great painters of the era in which American art is matching America's leadership in all forms of human endeavor."

ARTHUR MILLER
Los Angeles

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