Sonia Gechtoff was an American abstract expressionist painter.
19 Facts About Sonia Gechtoff
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Sonia Gechtoff was born in Philadelphia to Ethel and Leonid Gechtoff.
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Sonia Gechtoff's mother managed art galleries, including her own East and West gallery located at 3108 Fillmore Street in San Francisco.
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Sonia Gechtoff's father was a highly successful genre artist from Odessa, Ukraine.
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Sonia Gechtoff introduced his daughter to painting and "had [her] sit beside him at his easel with a brush and paints and beginning at age six he was there to spur [her] on".
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In 1951, Sonia Gechtoff relocated to San Francisco, sharing her social and professional life with Bay Area artists such as Hassel Smith, Philip Roeber, Madeline Dimond, Ernest Briggs, Elmer Bischoff, Byron McClintock, and Deborah Remington.
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Sonia Gechtoff was immersed in the heady culture of the San Francisco Bay Area Beat Generation.
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Sonia Gechtoff rapidly shifted to work as an Abstract Expressionist.
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Sonia Gechtoff married James "Jim" Kelly, another noted Bay Area artist, in 1953.
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Sonia Gechtoff gained national recognition in 1954, when her work was exhibited in the Guggenheim Museum's Younger American Painters show alongside Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, and Jackson Pollock.
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Sonia Gechtoff was represented by major New York galleries, among which were Poindexter and Gruenebaum, receiving consistently excellent reviews for her work.
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Sonia Gechtoff cited Clyfford Still's influence on her style.
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Sonia Gechtoff took important lessons about line and shape from Still's work, and is sometimes referred to as a "second-generation Abstract Expressionist".
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Sonia Gechtoff used vibrant colors and thick, energetic brushstroke to suggest a central figure whose arms stretch across the picture plane.
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Sonia Gechtoff's bold, swirling compositions won her a place in the United States Pavilion at the Brussels World's Fair in 1958.
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Later in her career, after moving to New York, Sonia Gechtoff began drawing inspiration from the Brooklyn Bridge, classical architecture, and the sea, whose forms are recognizable in her later series of collage-like paintings.
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Sonia Gechtoff continued to develop her work throughout her career, never staying with one style.
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Sonia Gechtoff developed an interest in doing a series of work on a theme as well as sets, multiple canvases comprising a single complete work.
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In 1993 Sonia Gechtoff was elected to the National Academy of Design.