Fine Art: Frank Kleinholz

Frank Kleinholz was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1901.  Hardworking and diligent as a student, he earned as scholarship to Colby College in Maine and then to Fordham Law School, passing the Bar exam in 1923.  Somewhat discontented with what he called his “nice bourgeois life” he started painting with artist Alex Dobkin whose studio was across the street.  He fell in love with painting and juggled both worlds for several years before leaving his law practice and devoting himself entirely to his art having his first one-man exhibit at the age of 40.  His work was centered on family life in New York, Coney Island, and Brooklyn.  Newsweek described him as a “Brooklyn-born Gauguin.”  He lived in Paris, studying printmaking and on the Isle de Brehat in Brittany but finally returning to New York in 1950.  His work is in prestigious collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York,  The Fine Arts Museum in Moscow, the Brooklyn Museum, the Hirschhorn Museum in Washington DC among many others.   He died in 1987 in Miami, Florida.