Oscar Chelimsky

Artist and Art Professor Oscar Chelimsky Dies at 87 Oscar Chelimsky, an artist whose career spanned some six decades, died January 19 at his home in Shaker Heights, Ohio, of Parkinson's disease. Throughout his career, which evolved first in New York City 1945-1948, then in France and Europe 1948-1970, and then in America 1970 to the present, he remained focused on the conjunction between form and liberty in painting. That is, his major plastic vision was a combination of the formal ideas proposed by Cezanne and Picasso, with the freedom of spirit and execution introduced by American "abstract expressiionist" painters. This combination of form and liberty imparted a remarkable solidity to his painting but did not impede in any way its free flight, its lyricism, or the spontaneity of its handwriting. Chelimsky was born in New York City in 1923. He studied painting with Sidney Delevante at Cooper Union, with Paul Burlin at the Art Students' League, and with Hans Hofmann under the G.I. Bill. His first one-man show occurred at the Galerie Neuf, in Manhattan, in 1945. He moved to Paris in 1948 and resided there for 22 years, exhibiting at many different galleries including five one-man shows at the Gallery Jeanne Bucher, at all the major salons, and eventually, across France and Europe. His work was acquired by many private collectors and museums, among which the Museum of Modern Art in Paris, and the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Throughout his time in Paris, he developed friendships with many artists, including Fernand Leger, Georges Braque, Mark Tobey, and especially Constantin Brancusi. A French curator at the Toulouse Museum wrote of Chelimsky that his work served as a unique link between the post-war art of France and that of the United States, and that "he influenced not only the development and evolution of French abstract art, but also a genuinely universal movement of plastic creation." On returning to the United States in 1970, he continued to exhibit notably in Washington, D. C. and in New York, and joined the faculty of the Maryland College of Art and Design as Chairman of the Painting Department. He continued to teach there until his retirement in 1991. Chelimsky leaves behind a wife, Eleanor; two children, Thomas Chelimsky, M. D., also of Shaker Heights; Catherine Fallick, M. D., of Bethesda, Maryland; and five grandchildren: Miriam, Jeremy, Hannah, Emily and Charlotte.


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