The Abel G. Warshawsky Family included the artistically accomplished brothers Abel, Alexander, and Samuel, who were three of the nine children of Ezekiel and Ida Warshawsky, Orthodox Jewish immigrants from Poland. Abel was born in Sharon, Pennsylvania. Alexander and Samuel were born in Cleveland, Ohio.
Abel G. Warshawsky (1883-1962) studied at the Cleveland School of Art and at the Art Students League and National Academy of Design in New York City before moving to Paris in 1908 where he lived most of the time until 1939. In 1939, Abel, also known as Abraham George, A. G. and "Buck", moved to Monterey, California. Abel Warshawsky painted landscapes and portraits in a style that, in 1953, he labeled "classic impressionism." In a 1980 article, Cleveland
Alexander Warshawsky (1887-1945) studied at the Cleveland School of Art and then at the National Academy of Design in New York City. In 1916 he moved to Paris; for twenty-five years much of his painting was done in Brittany and southern France. He lived the last twelve years of his life in California. Also known as Alex and Xander, he exhibited his landscapes and portraits in Paris, New York, Cleveland, Chicago, Minneapolis and Los Angeles. In 1946 the Cleveland Museum of Art presented a memorial exhibition of the works of Max Kalish and Alexander Warshawsky. Kalish, a sculptor, and Alexander Warshawsky were both Cleveland-born Jewish artists who died in 1945.
Samuel Jesse Warshawsky (dates unknown) was a playwright and fiction writer as well as an advertising executive and publicity director with various motion picture firms. His play "The Woman of Destiny," was first produced in Provincetown, Massachusetts, in 1931. Among other presentations of this play, which concerned the efforts of the first woman president to prevent war, were a 1936 WPA Theater Project production. Samuel Warshawsky also served as associate editor of The Green International and was a frequent contributor to The New History, as well as to other publications.
The Abel G. Warshawsky Family Papers, 1913-1986 and undated, pertain primarily to Abel G. Warshawsky including articles and reviews, exhibit catalogues, and a pre-publication typescript of The Memories of an American Impressionist. Materials pertaining to Alexander consist principally of newspaper and magazine articles. Samuel Warshawsky materials include play scripts, two short stories, and articles about productions of his play, "The Woman of Destiny".
This collection is of value to researchers interested in American Impressionist artists, specifically those whose formative years were spent in early twentieth century Paris, France. This collection is also of interest to researchers interested in Cleveland-born artists and writers or Jewish artists and writers who were born in Cleveland, Ohio.
The collection is arranged in two series.
All photographs have been removed to the photograph and print collection.
Processed by Nancy F. Schwartz in 1992.
None.
[Container ___, Folder ___ ] MS 4591 Abel G. Warshawsky Family Papers, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio
Florence and Lee Warshawsky, 1990 and 1991.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.