Samuel Bookatz

After the turn of the 20th century, as he passed age 90, Bookatz conducted a search with the assistance of the Corcoran for a commercial gallery to handle sales of the paintings. In 2006, he selected a gallery in the Cleveland area, a nod to his childhood city. Since his death at age 99, the vast majority of his paintings, numbering in the thousands, are being overseen by the Bookatz Foundation. Samuel Bookatz was survived by his wife, Sue. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery in January 2010.

In 1964, Bookatz married Helen Suzzann Meyer, and purchased a D.C. building to open a larger studio and the Bookatz Gallery. He later bought a different building in 1967 and again in 1973, always locating in D.C. Over the subsequent decades he worked in a style in which he moved from painting to painting in a single day, developing the canvasses over a period of time: "I can work on 12 canvasses in a one day ranging from realist to abstract." He showed less frequently in New York and other galleries, having his own display space in the building where his art studio was housed. He thereby amassed, over the decades, over 5,000 pieces. In 1999, he had a second one-person exhibition at the Corcoran.

A review of a 1961 show at Monede Gallery, New York: "His mastery of drawing is apparent," Bookatz may have been a "newcomer to NY though by no means a beginner," "his paintings constitute a genuinely personal world and have modesty of conception and attitude." "Particular to Bookatz is the frequent graceful rhythm which runs through the figures and, more basically, through one painting, since several heads are merely ovals which are repeated below to suggest spirals. The color is never diverse and often green, gray, or blue."

Through these types of commissions, portraits, and architectural design, as well as occasional commercial endorsements such as a 1954 Crayola Crayon ad in American Artist, Bookatz was able to circumvent the rigors of gallery showings and income through sales in those venues. This allowed him to develop his personal art as he wished, absent of saleability considerations. He could instead submit works to museums and occasional pieces to the New York gallery Monede. In his pursuit of works that spoke to him, he co-founded the Washington Abstraction Group with Arshile Gorky.

In 1950, he met Joe Morgan, architect for the Marriott Corporation, based in Washington. The Marriott hotel chain was planning free-standing restaurants called the Hot Shoppes. Morgan commissioned Bookatz to create murals for all eight restaurants. The figurative expressionist scenes involved modern flower gardens with figures entwined. He also worked on increasingly abstract architectural details for temples, office buildings, and later frescoes for eight elder housing buildings by D.C. developer Joseph Della Ratta. In 1962 he developed, via a grant from the Ford Foundation, set designs for the D.C. Arena Stage. The increasingly abstract styles of painting can be seen in his works acquired by such friends as military man Jack Gross, whose art estate was bequeathed to the Harrisburg Art Association, and Pearl S. Buck.

Bookatz showed increasing interest in figurative expressionism in his personal artwork. From his non-commissioned paintings, he began submitting works to Washington's Corcoran Gallery biennial exhibitions in 1945—a practice he continued through 1961—developing a style whereby his "figure drawings are formed out of a complex amalgam of generalized abstraction and painstakingly detailed figuration." In 1948 he was given a one-person exhibition at the Corcoran. In 1950 he was given a one-person exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution.

Although his mother discarded his stored Cleveland artwork while he was overseas, Bookatz was able to mount a one-man show at the Cleveland Institute of Art in 1940 with the fruits of his European trip. Back in the U.S. he quickly developed a means for sustaining himself with art though portraits of prominent locals in 1940–41. One of these subjects, Cleveland Press science writer David Deitz, was on the National Reserve Council and was a consultant to the surgeon general. He inquired about Bookatz's lack of plans during a time of draft and war. Deitz made an introduction regarding a post President Roosevelt created "to commission an artist who would be attached to the National Medical Corps who would create murals depicting men in their line of duty."

Bookatz produced early work strong enough that one submission won the 1937 Prix de Rome and allowed him to tour Europe studying art in London, Paris, and Rome for two years. That prize bestowed not only accolades for his work but a valuable free studio and complimentary access to all museums and educational facilities in Europe as a scholar. During that period, he exhibited at the American Academy of Rome, attended by King Victor Emmanuel. During his European tour he encountered problems with dictator-era authorities, was expelled from a train for assisting a Jewish child, and was arrested for failing to stand in his window alcove while sketching an orating Benito Mussolini. While in Europe he married Laurie Tridell of France after a whirlwind romance. She divorced him a year later when she was not permitted to accompany him in returning to the U.S.

Samuel Bookatz (October 3, 1910 – November 16, 2009) was a prolific painter who defied the demands of his blue collar, Orthodox Jewish upbringing to study art in the United States and Europe. Bookatz painted in a variety of styles: for commissions with presidential, military, political, and civic portraits; for religious and secular frescoes; and mostly for his own vision. In his private art, he developed from a realistic style to impressionist paintings, later to figurative expressionist and to increasingly abstract expressionist themes.