© Estate of the artist. Photograph and digital image © Delaware Art Museum. Not for reproductio…

Harold Anchel

Jewish dancer and lithographer, 1912–1980

BiographyBorn into a Yiddish neighborhood on the Lower East Side, Harold Anchel (1912-1980) flourished as an artist within the most dynamic decades of the rapidly growing 20th-century American art world. In the 1930s, he was part of a progressive dance troupe, enrolled at the National Academy of Design, and was notably the youngest lithographer employed by the WPA. After serving in the camouflage division in WWII, the GI Bill gave him a chance to study at the Arts Student's League, working with teachers George Grosz, Vaclav Vytlacil, and Morris Kantor. As a result, the realism of his early WPA work evolved into lyrical abstraction, making him a member of the legendary New York School of Abstract Expressionists. In the 1950s, he was chosen for the 26th Biennial Exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington DC. He continued to paint until he died in 1980. His work is held in museum collections across the United States, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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