Siporin, Mitchell (American, 1910-1976). PERFORMERS.I. Etching, not dated. Edition of 17, Titled and signed in pencil, and NUMBERED 9/17 In very good conditition.An example of this print is in the collection of the Block Museum at Northwestern University in Chicago. Siporin was primarily a painter who worked in egg tempera.His few prints, strongly executed etchings, with deep, bold strokes, show a stylistic affinity with pre-renaissance woodcuts, early engrvings, and German Expressionism.Siporin was born in New York in 1910. His family moved to Chicago in 1911, where is father worked as a union organizaer. He stufied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and aslo with the painter Todros Geller. He is usualy classified as a Social Realist artist, and with good reason. He belonged to the John Reed Club and the Artists Union. He had drawings published in New Masses, but also did work for more commercial publications like Esquire and Ringmaster. He worked with the WPA, for which he did many murals for public spaces. Siporin received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1945 When Brandeis University was founded in 1951, he was the first to Chair its Art department, and taught there until shortly before his death in 1976.
