Charles Biederman (1906-2004)

Hiro Fine Art is interested in purchasing, consigning and appraising artwork by Charles Biederman.

Charles Biederman was born Karl Joseph Biederman in Cleveland, Ohio to Czech immigrant parents. He worked in a art studio while he was a teenager and attended the Cleveland Art Institute before he attended the Art Institute of Chicago. As a student, he was a bright, up and coming artist, winning the Paul Trebeilcock Prize for a Solo Exhibition in 1929. Later that year, Biederman dropped out of the Art Institute because of differences he had with the faculty.

Charles Biederman moved to New York in 1934 and was able to exhibit with several well known abstract artists such as Alexander Calder and Charles Green Shaw. His exhibitions at the Paul Reinhardt Gallery and the Pierre Matisse Gallery established him as one of the leading American Abstract Artists of the time. Biederman was highly influenced by paintings he encountered by Joan Miro at the Pierre Matisse Gallery. His artworks were completely abstract and he began to create structural wall reliefs.

Biederman spent nearly a year in Paris between 1936 and 1937. While in Paris, he met Picasso, Mondrian, Miro, and Leger and was initially highly influenced by Leger. He worked in a studio and influenced by the technology he saw at the 1937 World’s Fair in Paris, he began to abandon his bimorphic and organic style of painting for a more geometric style. His focus centered on relief sculptures instead of two dimensional paintings.

With his new style, Biederman moved back to America in 1937 and lived in Chicago and New York until 1941 creating Avant Garde artwork. He was the first artist to use florescent light in his artwork titled Number 9, New York, July, 1940. Biederman married in 1941 and moved to Red Wing, Minnesota, where he remained for the rest of his life. While in Red Wing, he lived on a farm and continued to create art. Biederman was known as an intellectual art philosopher in that he published several books on art theory where he explored the relationships between art and nature: “Art as the Evolution of Visual Knowledge” (1948), “The New Cezanne: From Monet to Mondrian” (1958) and “Search for New Arts” (1979).

Hiro Fine Art is interested in purchasing artworks by Charles Biederman.

Read a blog on Charles Biederman.

• 1906 – Born in Cleveland, Ohio
• Studied at the Art Institute of Chicago
• 1929 – Won the Paul Trebeilcock Prize for his Solo Exhibition
• 1934 – Moved to New York City
• Had exhibitions at the Paul Reinhardt Gallery and Pierre Matisse Gallery
• 1936-1937 – Lived in Paris and met Picasso, Mondrian, Miro and Leger
• 1937-1941 – Lived between Chicago and New York
• 1941 – Moved to Red Wing, Minnesota and lived there the remainder of his life