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March 13, 1970
To CKG
From Reuben Tam

A. Biographical sketch for Exeter Academy exhibit, and
B. Statement on work

A. Reuben Tam was born in Hawaii in 1916. He Studied at the University of Hawaii, from which he was graduated with a Bachelor's degree in 1937. He did graduate work in art and education at the University of Hawaii, and in philosophy and aesthetics at Columbia University and the New School for Social Research. He also studied at the California School of Fine Arts.

His work is in the permanent collections of more than 24 museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Wichita Art Museum, Des Moines Art Center, Krannert Art Museum of the University of Illinois, and the Smithsonian Institute, where it is part of the National Collection of Fine Art.

He has had more than 20 one-man shows of his paintings in museums and galleries, and has participated in national, regional, and international shows since 1940. He has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and numerous other awards and prizes.

He has resided in New York City since 1941, and since 1948 has spent four months each year on Monhegan Island, Maine, where he has a studio. He teaches advanced painting classes at the Brooklyn Museum of Art school, and recently was a professor at Oregon State University. He is represented by Coe Kerr Gallery in New York City.



B. Reuben Tam's lifelong interest in land, sea, and sky has motivated his work as a painter. He seeks the coastline as his vantage point for many of his paintings, and evokes the spirit of place in his landscapes and seascapes.

His paintings are about weather and geology, islands, tides, and light, and the very movement of the earth. The territory of his interest and search ranges from the intimate zones of the beach to the high strata of glacial mountains.