32 Facts About Carl Sprinchorn

Carl Sprinchorn was a Swedish-born American artist who studied under Robert Henri and who adopted a style of realist modernism that admiring critics saw as both abstract and revolutionary.

Carl Sprinchorn made cityscapes and street scenes, seascapes and beach scenes, bucolic landscapes and farm scenes.

Carl Sprinchorn drew famous dancers, society figures, and both urban and rural men at work.

Carl Sprinchorn landed in New York on October 30,1903, and enrolled in the New York School of Art eight days later.

Carl Sprinchorn later said that his study under Robert Henri was the most important factor in the development of his career.

Early in 1907 a painting of his called "A Winter Scene on the East Side, New York," was accepted by jurors for the National Academy of Design annual exhibition, but, following a protest from Henri regarding other paintings that had been rejected, the academy decided not to hang Carl Sprinchorn's, giving lack of space as the reason.

Carl Sprinchorn followed Henri when, in January 1909, he founded a school of his own and then left the following year to pursue a career as a professional artist.

Between 1907 and 1909 Carl Sprinchorn had served as manager of the New York School of Art and he continued to serve that function during his time in the new Henri school.

Carl Sprinchorn often spent summer months in artists' colonies near the water: in Provincetown, Massachusetts, in Ogunquit, Maine, and on Monhegan Island, Maine.

Carl Sprinchorn returned to Scandinavia from time to time to paint and visit with his family.

Carl Sprinchorn was invited by a family friend to visit Monson, a town where there was a small community of Swedish immigrants.

On this occasion a critic recognized an affinity to English artist Thomas Rowlandson but noted that Carl Sprinchorn saw things in a more fragmentary manner, in angles rather than curves, and with more biting humor.

Carl Sprinchorn showed three times in 1920, once with other Swedish-American artists at the American-Scandinavian Foundation, once with a group that included Anne Rector at the National Arts Club, and once in an exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists.

In reviewing the first of the three, a Times critic said Carl Sprinchorn contributed "two large paintings of great distinction" and drawings that were even stronger.

Carl Sprinchorn manages to put on his canvas both the object and his interpretation of it.

Between 1922 and 1925 Carl Sprinchorn was art director of the New Gallery which exhibited and sold works by little-known American artists and avant-garde European ones.

Carl Sprinchorn's works were frequently shown in group exhibitions during the 1920s and early 1930s: at the New Gallery in 1923 and 1924; at the Whitney Studio Club in 1924; at the Brooklyn Museum in 1925,1926,1928, and 1929; at the Marie Sterner Gallery in 1928,1930, and 1933; at the Roerich Museum in 1929; and at the Fifty-Sixth Street Galleries in 1930.

Carl Sprinchorn held solo exhibitions during these years at his own studio, the Rhen Galleries, the Ainslie Gallery in 1928, the Penthouse Gallery, and the Sullivan Gallery.

Carl Sprinchorn used his earnings from his job at the New Gallery and other sources to fund a year and a half of travel in Puerto Rico and Santo Domingo in 1926 and 1927.

Carl Sprinchorn stayed in New York most of the time between 1931 and 1937.

Carl Sprinchorn's work was part of the painting event in the art competition at the 1932 Summer Olympics.

Carl Sprinchorn's work appeared at the Whitney Museum in the second biennial exhibition in 1936 and in the annual exhibition of contemporary art in 1938.

In January 1943 Carl Sprinchorn wrote the collector and museum director, Duncan Phillips, asking him to see the Macbeth Gallery exhibition of his works.

Carl Sprinchorn lived in Manhattan from 1950 until 1956 when he moved to a farm in Selkirk, New York.

Carl Sprinchorn stopped exhibiting in 1963 and died eight years later.

The gallery, which represented Carl Sprinchorn's estate, held a second retrospective in 1996.

Toward the end of his career Carl Sprinchorn addressed this dual aspect of his work.

Carl Sprinchorn followed Henri in his style of drawing as much as in his oil paintings.

In 1920 a critic for the Times wrote that Carl Sprinchorn showed his talent most clearly in his drawings.

Carl Sprinchorn's style changed little during the rest of his career, so little that critics writing in 2002 could echo what critics had written in the early 1920s.

Carl Sprinchorn was born in the village of Broby, near Kristianstad, Sweden, on May 13,1887.

Carl Sprinchorn's father was Claes Sprinchorn, a cabinetmaker who did carpentry and restored furniture.