Richard Lindner

German-American artist, Richard Lindner (1901-1978), is known for his Surrealist and Cubist-inflected paintings that often drew on urban life, Berlin’s cabaret culture of the 1930s, and memories from his childhood in Germany.

Born in Hamburg and growing up in Nuremburg, Lindner attended the Kunstakademie in Munich, one of the oldest and most significant art academies in Germany. He acted as the art director for a large publishing house, Knorr & Hirth, before he had to flee Nazi-occupied Germany in the mid-1930s due to his Jewish ancestry. He moved to New York via Paris in the early 1940s, where he became a successful illustrator for numerous publications, including Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. In the 1950s Lindner took up painting. His subject matter was often erotic with subjects such as streetwalkers, circus women, and men in uniform, marked by harsh colors and garish renderings. 

In 1952, Lindner began teaching at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, and received the William and Norma Copley Foundation Award in 1957. In 1965, Lindner became Guest Professor at The Hochschule für bildende Künste in Hamburg, Germany, and then began teaching at Yale University in 1967. His work can be found in the collections of Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Harvard Art Museums, Brooklyn Museum, and many others.