Louis Lozowick Biography

Louis Lozowick

American

1891-1973

Biography


Lithographer, painter, and educator Louis Lozowick was born in Ludvinovka in 1891, one of six children.  With the support of an older brother he attended the Keiv Art School from 1903-1905.  When political upheaval took hold, he escaped  to the United States to join his brother in New York City, where he quickly learned enough English to attend a Newark high school, supporting himself with factory work. 

In 1912 he began attending the National Academy of Design, studying under Leon Kroll, George W. Maynard, Ivan Olinsky, Emil Carlsen, and others.  Encouraged by Carlsen and Kroll to develop his own style, he applied at Ohio State University, where he would be able to find jobs while continuing to pursue a more modern, less rigid artistic education.  He completed the four year program in three, and then joined the army, using his free time and the discounted army fares to travel cross-country and find inspiration for much of his future work. In 1919 Lozowick returned to Europe, this time to the many artistic capitols it housed, including Paris, Berlin, and Moscow.  Influenced by the new styles which were developing there, Lozowick's early work shows the signs of Cubist and Russian Contructivist theory, and his love of structural images.  It was in 1923 that he was introduced to lithography, which would become his foremost medium, and he returned to New York in 1924 where he would apply his newfound styles and techniques to a his first series, Machine Ornament Drawings, which would be included in his first show two years later. 

At this time he also began writing and lecturing on art, and would begin publishing articles and illustrations in various periodicals beginning in 1925.  He was a part of the New York Graphic Arts Division of the Federal Arts Project, and through this he was able to fully concentrate on lithography, a medium he would focus on throughout his life. 

In a prolific career that spanned nearly his entire life, Lozowick remained active in many forms of art— including graphic, fine, theater set and costume design, and illustration, among others— until his death in 1973.