Artist of the Day, December 8, 2025 : Ilya Bolotowsky, a Russian-American painter (#2438)

 Ilya Bolotowsky (1907 – 1981) was an early 20th-century Russian-American painter in abstract styles in New York City. His work, a search for philosophical order through visual expression, embraced cubism and geometric abstraction and was influenced by Dutch painter Piet Mondrian.

Born to Jewish parents in St. Petersburg, Russia, Bolotowsky lived in Baku and Constantinople before immigrating to the United States in 1923, where he settled in New York City. He attended the National Academy of Design. He became associated with a group called "The Ten Whitney Dissenters" or simply "The Ten", a group of artists including Louis Schanker, Adolph Gottlieb, Mark Rothko, Ben-Zion, and Joseph Solman who rebelled against the strictures of the Academy and held independent exhibitions.

Bolotowsky was strongly influenced by Dutch painter Piet Mondrian and the tenets of De Stijl, a movement that advocated the possibility of ideal order in the visual arts. Bolotowsky adopted Mondrian's use of horizontal and vertical geometric pattern and a palette restricted to primary colors and neutrals.

Having turned to geometric abstractions, in 1936 Bolotowsky co-founded American Abstract Artists, a cooperative formed to promote the interests of abstract painters and to increase understanding between themselves and the public.

In the 1960s, he began making three-dimensional forms, usually vertical and straight-sided. Bolotowsky's work was exhibited at the University of New Mexico in 1970.

Bolotowsky's first solo museum show was in 1974 at New York City's Guggenheim Museum and went on to the National Collection of Fine Arts.

His work has been exhibited at the Anita Shapolsky Gallery in New York City.

A Bolotowsky painting bought at a North Carolina Goodwill store for $9.99 was auctioned at Sotheby's in September 2012 for $34,375.

Bolotowsky taught at Black Mountain College from 1946 to 1948. The artists Kenneth Noland and Ruth Asawa were among his students. He taught humanities and fine arts at the University of Wyoming, Brooklyn College, Hunter College, the Southampton, New York campus of Long Island University, the State University of New York at New Paltz, the University of Wisconsin, Whitewater, and the University of New Mexico.

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Ilya Bolotowsky

Ilya Bolotowsky (left)

Untitled (IB 208), c.1935

Mural for Williamsburg Housing Project, full-scale reconstruction, c.1936-80

Untitled, c.1936

Untitled, 1937 from American Abstract Artists

Umber, c.1938-39

Remembrance, c.1947

Oval Painting, c.1955

Untitled (IB 595), c.1956-57

White Circle, c.1958

Vibrant, c.1959

Untitled (Column), c.1963

Small Tondo, c.1964

Untitled, c.1965

Blue Horizontal, c.1968

Tondo with Blue and Yellow, c.1969

Black Diamond, c.1970

Red Blue Square, c.1970

Series II, c.1970

Untitled (IB 598), c.1970

Untitled (IB 614), c.1950

Rising Tondo, c.1972

Orange Tondo, c.1973

White Horizontal with Blue, Red, and Yellow, c.1973

Mini Tondo in Scarlet Yellow Blue, c.1975

Untitled Open Column, c.1978

Blue Tondo, c.1978

Untitled, c.1970's

Blue Diamond c.1979

Rising Tondo, c.1981