Timeline

1898

Born in Kovno (Kaunus), Lithuania

1906

Emigrated with his family to New York in 1906

1913

Served as an apprentice to a lithographer

1917 - 1921

Studied art at New York University, City College of New York and the National Academy of Design

1922

Married Tillie Goldstein

1925 - 1929

Traveled several times to Europe and North Africa with his wife

1929

Birth of daughter Judith

1930

First solo exhibition at The Downtown Gallery in New York. A work is also exhibited at New York’s Museum of Modern Art

His reputation as a leading artist in the social realist movement is cemented

1931 - 1933

Painted his most famous series of works: “The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti,” followed by “The Mooney Series”

1931

Shared a studio with photographer Walker Evans in New York

1933 - 1938

Worked as a photographer for the Farm Security Administration, recording images of Depression era America

1933

Worked with muralist Diego Rivera for a mural at Rockefeller Center in New York

Birth of son Ezra

1935

After divorcing Tillie, remarried to Bernarda Bryson

1936

Birth of daughter Susanna by Bernarda

1937 - 1943

Created several public murals, including one for the Bronx Courthouse, New York

1937

Moved to Jersey Homesteads (Roosevelt), New Jersey

1938

Birth of son Jonathan

1947

Retrospective exhibition is shown at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

1954

With Willem de Kooning, chosen to represent the United States at the Venice Biennale

1956 - 1957

Served as the Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard University. His Norton Lectures are published by Harvard as “The Shape of Content”

1969

Died in New York, NY