The Kresge Art Museum will add a new painting to its Figurative Expressionism Collection Initiative with the help of a grant from The Judith Rothschild Foundation.
The work, "Two Figures, Two Heads" by Louis Finkelstein, was purchased with the $10,000 grant, and although it is not housed in the museum, the work will be made available for the next Figurative Expressionism exhibit.
The Figurative Expressionist works are those with the figure kept in the work while moving toward abstract expression.
Finkelstein, who created the work in 1998, studied painting at The Cooper Union, The Art Students League of New York and the Brooklyn Museum School. He was best known for his brightly colored abstracts painted from direct observations. He later taught his expressionistic style at the Brooklyn Museum School, Philadelphia College of Art, Yale University and Queens College.
To purchase a work of art with foundation grants, the work must be done by a deceased American artist; Finkelstein died in 2000.
This year, the foundation awarded more than $250,000 to 21 projects. The Kresge Art Museum previously received grants from the foundation in 2001 and 2003. In 2003, a $10,000 grant was awarded to purchase Nicholas Marsicano's 1962 painting "Double Image," and a $7,500 grant in 2001 went toward the purchasing of a Robert Beauchamp work.
