Philip Pearlstein earned his bachelor of fine arts degree from Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1949 following service in World War II. He moved to New York that summer and in 1950, began graduate study at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University. The artist's first solo exhibition was held at Tanager Gallery in 1955, the same year he finished a graduate degree in art history from NYU. Pearlstein began teaching early in his career and held faculty positions at Pratt Institute and Brooklyn College, where he taught until 1988. The artist received numerous grants and fellowships, served as president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters from 2003 to 2006, and is represented in public and private collections throughout the United States.
