Emil Bisttram
American, born Hungary, 1895 - 1976Sea Pattern, ca. 1957–58
On view
Oil on canvas
Dimensions24 × 27 in. (61 × 68.6 cm)
Museum purchase, 2000.68
Emil Bisttram spent most of his artistic career as a painter of abstraction. Many of his earlier paintings have no connection to recognizable forms however around the 1940s he returned to identifiable subject matter. This painting is part of a series devoted to marine subjects, an interest that continued through the 1950s. Sea Pattern is likely from the latter part of this period, as it exhibits the characteristically expressive brushwork and overlapping forms he used at that time. Although interpretive, the work refers to the natural world and reveals detectable forms, such as an octopus and other sea life, within the abstracted design of the composition. The most notable forms are the birds, identified as Skimmers—a type of seabird that uses its lower mandible, which is larger than the top part of its beak, to "skim" over the surface of the water to capture small fish, crustaceans, and mollusks.
He was born in Hungary and immigrated with his family to America, settling in the lower East Side of New York City in 1907. Originally trained as a cabinetmaker, Bisttram was determined to pursue a career in fine art. To this end, he attended night school for illustration and received instruction at a number of institutions, including the National Academy of Design, Cooper Union, Parsons School of Design, and the Art Students League, studying with Leon Kroll, Jay Hambidge, and Howard Giles, among others. Hambidge was an especially important figure in Bisttram's development, for he introduced him to “dynamic symmetry,” a compositional approach based on proportional relationships.
