Peter Takal Biography

Peter Takal

American

1905-1995

Biography

Born in Bucharest, Romania, Peter Takal was born on December 8, 1905. Takal lived and worked in Berlin in the ‘20s, worked as an actor and artist in Paris in the ‘30s and moved to New York in the ‘40s where he became a U.S. citizen. He is appreciated internationally as a master of pen-and-ink drawings, his chosen medium, as well as a prolific print maker. Surrealist overtones are present throughout his work. Subjects range from Parisian street scenes to linear fantasies of plant life and landscapes after he acquired a farm in eastern Pennsylvania in 1945.

Takal’s career, which spanned seven decades, includes more than 100 one-man exhibitions in the U.S. and Europe. His work is currently represented in over 100 public collections including the Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney and Metropolitain Museum of Art as well as many other leading museums, galleries and private collections throughout the world. With approximately 1,500 drawings as well as prints, paintings, books, sketchbooks and archival material, the Arkansas Arts Center now holds the largest and most complete collection of Takal’s remaining work.

Townsend Wolfe, former director of the Arkansas Arts Center, wrote: “Perhaps not since Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres has there been an artist who was so focused on drawing as a means of expression as Peter Takal. Both artists were dedicated to the ultimate use of line to clarify and state their observations and inner spirit.”

Peter Takal died on March 15th, 1995.
 
http://art.famsf.org/peter-takal