John D. Graham was a Russian-born American Modernist / Minimalist painter. He was born in Kiev, Ukraine and moved to New York in 1920. He trained at the Art Students League of New York, where he briefly assisted Ashcan School painter John F. Sloan. In 1925 he relocated to Baltimore with his third wife artist Elinor Gibson. In addition to painting, Graham established himself as an art connoisseur and collector. He is associated with the New York School as an arist and impresario. In 1942 he curated a group show at the McMillen Gallery that exhibited work by Jackson Pollock (it was his first New York exhibition), William de Kooning, and Lee Krasner alongside work by Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. He died in London in 1961. |
