Janet Sobel (1893 - 1968, Russia) is one of the unsung heroines of 20th century art. Born near Ekaterinoslav (now Dnipro, Ukraine), Sobel emigrated to the United States in her teens to escape the anti-semitism of her homeland; yet it was not until she was a grandmother that she started painting at her home in Brighton Beach.
Sobel’s floral and decorative motifs combined figurative memory painting with elements of Eastern European folk art. Relentlessly inventive, she also evolved a unique form of abstract expressionism, encompassing her works in an all-over composition of drips and faces: an innovation which influenced Jackson Pollock, long before his own practice of spattering paint.
With the support of dealer and curator Sidney Janis, Sobel exhibited at high profile New York venues like Norlyst Gallery and Puma Gallery in 1944. Her subsequent inclusion in The Women at Peggy Guggenheim’s Art of This Century gallery led to an unprecedented solo show at the same space in 1946. Her many allies included William Rubin, who acquired two works for the MoMA collection before her death in 1968.
Recent exhibitions include Abstract Expressionism at Royal Academy, London (2017), Outliers at National Gallery of Art, Washington DC (2018), Elles font l’abstraction (Women in Abstraction) at Centre Pompidou, Paris (2021), and a retrospective - Janet Sobel: All Over - at the Menil Collection, Houston (2024). Collections include MoMA, New York, Centre Pompidou, Paris, LACMA, Los Angeles and many more.
Janet Sobel: All-Over, The Menil Collection, (Houston) 2024
Janet Sobel, The Gallery of Everything, Nomad (St. Moritz) 2024
Janet Sobel: Wartime, The Ukrainian Museum, (New York) 2023
Action, Gesture, Paint: Women Artists and Global Abstraction 1940-70, Whitechapel Gallery (London) 2023
Women in Abstraction, Le Centre Pompidou, (Paris); Guggenheim Museum, (Bilbao) 2021/22
Janet Sobel: 20th Century Woman, The Gallery of Everything, Frieze Masters, (London) 2021
519: Architecture for Modern Art, MoMA, (New York) 2021
Outliers and American Vanguard Art, National Gallery of Art, (Washington DC); High Museum of Art, (Atlanta); Los Angeles County Museum of Art, (Los Angeles) 2018/19
The Museum of Everything #7, Museum of Old and New Art, (Tasmania) 2017/18
Making Space: Women Artists and Postwar Abstraction, MoMA, (New York) 2017
Abstract Expressionism, Royal Academy of Arts, (London); Guggenheim Museum, (Bilbao) 2016/17
The Museum of Everything #6, Kunsthal, (Rotterdam) 2016
In Wonderland: The Surrealist Adventures of Women in Mexico and the United States, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, (Los Angeles) 2012
Approaching Abstraction, American Folk Art Museum, (New York) 2010
Action/Abstraction: Pollock, de Kooning and American Art, 1940-1946, Jewish Museum, (New York) 2008
Außerhalb, Kunstverein Göttingen e.V., (Göttingen) 2003
Vital Forms: American Art and Design in the Atomic Age, 1940-1960, Brooklyn Museum of Art, (New York); San Diego Museum of Art, (San Diego); Walker Art Center, (Minneapolis), 2001
Artist's Choice: Elizabeth Murrary: Modern Women, Museum of Modern Art, (New York) 1995
Art of the Forties, MoMA, (New York) 1991
Selected Works, Whitney Museum of American Art at Phillip Morris, (New York) 1990
Abstract Expressionism: Other Dimensions - An Introduction to Small Scale Painterly Abstraction in America, 1940-1965, Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, New Brunswick (New Jersey); Whitney Museum of Art at Phillip Morris, (New York); Terra Museum of American Art, (Chicago); Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami, (Coral Gables) 1989/90
Peggy Guggenheim's Other Legacy, curated by Melvin P. Lader and Fred Licht, traveling exhibition, Peggy Guggenheim, (Venice); Solomon R. Guggenheim, (New York) 1987/88
American Women Artists Part I: 20th Century Pioneers, Sidney Janis Gallery, (New York) 1984
Recent Acquisitions: Paintings and Sculpture, Museum of Modern Art, (New York) 1970
Personal Statement: Painting Prophecy, David Porter Gallery, (Washington, DC) 1950
Art of This Century: The Women, Peggy Guggenheim, (New York); David Porter Gallery, (Washington); Mary Baldwin College, (Stanton); Western College, (Oxford); San Francisco Museum of Art, (San Francisco) 1945
Annual Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, (Philadelphia) 1945
Janet Sobel, Art of This Century, (New York) 1946
Summer Art Show, State University of Iowa, (Iowa) 1946
27th Annual; 28th Annual; 29th Annual; 30th Annual; The Brooklyn Museum, (New York) 1943/46
Abstract and Surrealist Art in America, Mortimer Brandt Gallery, (New York) 1944
Janet Sobel, Puma Gallery, (New York) 1944
Abstract and Surrealist Art in the United States, Museum of Modern Art, (San Francisco); Santa Barbara Museum; Seattle Museum of Art; Denver Museum of Art; Cincinnati Art Museum, 1944
Chronicle of Our Elders, Norlyst Art Gallery, (New York) 1944
27-30 Annual, Brooklyn Museum, (New York) 1943/46
American Primitive Painting of Four Centuries, Arts Club of Chicago, (Chicago) 1943
Exhibition #7, The Museum of Everything, UK, 2018
Janet Sobel: Primitivist, Surrealist, and Abstract Expressionist, Gail Levin, Woman's Art Journal 26, no. 1, 2005
Northwest Mythologies: The Interactions of Mark Tobey, Morris Graves, Kenneth Callahan and Guy Anderson, Tacoma, University of Washington Press, 2003
Eyesight Alone, Caroline Jones, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2003
Inside Out: Selected Works by Janet Sobel, Janet Sobel and Gail Levin, Gary Snyder Fine Art, New York, 2003
Janet Sobel, American National Biography, Deborah A. Goldberg, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999
Abstract Expressionism Other Politics, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1997
Art of This Century: The Women, Siobhan M. Conaty, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, 1997
Art of the Forties, Riva Castleman, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1991
Abstract Expressionism: Other Dimension; An Introduction to Small Scale Painterly Abstraction in America, 1940-1965, Jeffrey Wechsler, Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers, State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, 1989
Peggy – The Wayward Guggenheim, Jacquelin Bograd Weld, E.P. Dutton, New York, 1986
Peggy Guggenheim Collection: Venice, Angelica Zander Rudenstein, Abrams, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, 1985
Jackson Pollock, Elizabeth Frank, New York, Abbeville Press, 1983
Out of This Century Confessions of an Art Addict, Peggy Guggenheim, New York, Universe Books, 1979
Originals American Women Artists, Eleanor Munroe, Da Capo Press, New York, 1979
Confessions of an Art Addict, Peggy Guggenheim, Hopewell, Echo Press, 1960
Art and Culture, Clement Greenberg, Boston, Beacon, 1947
Modern Art Looks Ahead, Fernando Puma, Beechhurst Press, New York, 1947
Abstract and Surrealist Art in America, Sidney Janis, Arno Press, New York, 1944
Janet Sobel, John Dewey, Puma Gallery, New York, 1944
Paintings by Janet Sobel, Sidney Janis, 1944
