Nat Mayer Shapiro
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
visual artist.
Art
Nat Mayer Shapiro’s art is best known for his complex paintingPainting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
s on paper and canvas
Canvas
Canvas is an extremely heavy-duty plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, and other items for which sturdiness is required. It is also popularly used by artists as a painting surface, typically stretched across a wooden frame...
that may incorporate structural and whimsical imagery among areas of pure or constructed abstraction
Abstract art
Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...
. He did not adhere to any particular school or art movement
Art movement
An art movement is a tendency or style in art with a specific common philosophy or goal, followed by a group of artists during a restricted period of time, or, at least, with the heyday of the movement defined within a number of years...
, remaining an individualist throughout his life.
Life
Nat Mayer Shapiro spent his childhood and adolescence in Brooklyn, NY. At ten he decided he would become a full-time fine arts painterPainting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
and started attending the after-school programs at the Pratt Institute
Pratt Institute
Pratt Institute is a private art college in New York City located in Brooklyn, New York, with satellite campuses in Manhattan and Utica. Pratt is one of the leading undergraduate art schools in the United States and offers programs in Architecture, Graphic Design, History of Art and Design,...
in New York. He was inducted in the army in 1941, and traveled with the Medical Corp to Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and New Guinea
New Guinea
New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
where he spent most of his four years and half of military life. Upon his return to the States, he spent eight months in the Rest & Rehabilitation Center in Lake Placid
Lake Placid, New York
Lake Placid is a village in the Adirondack Mountains in Essex County, New York, United States. As of the 2000 census, the village had a population of 2,638....
, NY, where he was finally able to work as an artist, painting stage
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
sets, portraits and landscapes. In 1945, the War Department
United States Department of War
The United States Department of War, also called the War Department , was the United States Cabinet department originally responsible for the operation and maintenance of the United States Army...
acquired some of Shapiro’s artwork for the then planned War Museum. Back into civilian life, Shapiro worked as a commercial artist while attending classes at the Art Students League of New York
Art Students League of New York
The Art Students League of New York is an art school located on West 57th Street in New York City. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists, and has maintained for over 130 years a tradition of offering reasonably priced classes on a...
.
In 1951, married and father of two children, he moved with his family to Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
and later to Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
where he settled in France. In Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
he attended the Académie de la Grande Chaumière
Académie de la Grande Chaumière
The Académie de la Grande Chaumière is an art school in the VIe arrondissement of Paris, France. The school was founded in 1902 by the Swiss Martha Stettler , who refused to teach the strict academic rules of painting of the École des Beaux-Arts. It opened the way to the "Art Indépendant"...
and experimented with different artistic media and styles.
In 1985, Shapiro returned to New York and settled in Westchester, NY where he joined a group of artists who wanted to open a cooperative
Cooperative
A cooperative is a business organization owned and operated by a group of individuals for their mutual benefit...
art gallery
Art gallery
An art gallery or art museum is a building or space for the exhibition of art, usually visual art.Museums can be public or private, but what distinguishes a museum is the ownership of a collection...
. He was instrumental in locating, setting up and launching Westchester's oldest fine arts cooperative gallery in Dobbs Ferry, the Upstream Gallery of which he was president from 1995 to 2002.
Collections
Nat Mayer Shapiro’s works of art can be found in numerous private art collections throughout the world, and are included in the permanent art collections of the Ministry of Culture (Fonds National d'Art Contemporain—FNAC), Paris, France, The Art Gallery of the Queensborough Community CollegeQueensborough Community College
Not to be confused with Queens College, City University of New YorkQueensborough Community College , is one of six community colleges within the City University of New York system. It is located in the neighborhood of Bayside, Queens County, New York City, New York. The total enrollments are...
, Queens
Queens
Queens is the easternmost of the five boroughs of New York City. The largest borough in area and the second-largest in population, it is coextensive with Queens County, an administrative division of New York state, in the United States....
, NY and Pfizer
Pfizer
Pfizer, Inc. is an American multinational pharmaceutical corporation. The company is based in New York City, New York with its research headquarters in Groton, Connecticut, United States...
Inc. New York, New York. His works are on exhibit at Susan Berko-Conde Gallery in New York.