Michael Hafftka Figurative Neo Expressionist Oil Pastel Painting The Wave, 1984-1985

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MICHAEL HAFFTKA
"The Wave"
Hand signed lower right "Hafftka"
Oil and pastel on paper, 30.5" x 22.25". Framed 39" x … Read more MICHAEL HAFFTKA
"The Wave"
Hand signed lower right "Hafftka"
Oil and pastel on paper, 30.5" x 22.25". Framed 39" x 31.5".


Michael Hafftka (born 1953) is an American figurative expressionist painter and musician, composer, living in New York City. Hafftka was born in Manhattan, New York (1953) to Eva and Simon Hafftka, European refugees and Holocaust survivors. He was raised in the Bronx and attended public schools. His work is represented in the permanent collections of a number of museums, including: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Museum of Modern Art, Brooklyn Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Carnegie Museum of Art, New York Public Library, McNay Art Museum, Housatonic Museum of Art,
Arizona State University Art Museum, National Gallery of Art, and Yeshiva University Museum.
He was included in the show Jewish Themes/Contemporary American Artists II, The Jewish Museum, New York,
Hannelore Baron, Michael David, Audrey Flack, Cleve Gray, Michael Hafftka, Tobi Kahn, Art Spiegelman et al.
Hafftka's series of Kabbalah Zohar paintings were shown at the Mizel Center for the Arts, Denver, Colorado in 2010. Chapman University, Orange, CA, mounted a solo show of Hafftka Aleph-Bet,
Hafftka designed covers for Urizen Books, including Detour, Wedding Feast and Circuits, by Michael Brodsky. Kevin Begos of Guignol Books published Hafftka's drawings in 1982.
His first one-person show was at Art Galaxy. Among the New York galleries that subsequently have featured his work are: the Rosa Esman Gallery, the Aberbach Gallery, the Mary Ryan Gallery, and the DeLaurenti Gallery. He has also exhibited widely in the United States and abroad. He was included in the 1983 show Art of Found Objects at Gallery Schlesinger-Boisante, it including Keith Haring & LA2 (LA ROCK), Fred (FAB 5 Freddy) Brathwaite, Michael Hafftka and Justen Ladda. The Housatonic Museum of Art mounted a retrospective in October 2004. (The catalogue that accompanied the show included an introduction by Robbin Zella and critical essays by Michael Brodsky and Sam Hunter. Michael Brodsky is a well-known and highly respected novelist, the author of 12 published works of fiction and winner of the Hemingway prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction. Sam Hunter is Professor Emeritus of Art History at Princeton and the author of numerous monographs, including works on Francis Bacon, Isamu Noguchi, and George Segal. Among his books published by Harry N Abrams are "American Art of the 20th Century," "Hans Hofmann," and "Robert Rauschenberg." Professor Hunter was the director of the Jewish Museum in NY, Minneapolis Institute of Art and the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University.) Yeshiva University Museum at the Center for Jewish History in New York held a solo exhibition I of the Storm, "New York has scarcely seen figure paintings of such unrelenting solemnity and exasperation, or with so original an authority, since Francis Bacon brought his first exhibition to the city. Like him, Hafftka can be characterized as both an eccentric visionary and an increasingly dazzling technician whose virtuoso painterly expressivity and skills invite comparison with the masters"
— Sam Hunter, Princeton University, author of The Museum of Modern Art New York
Illustrated Books: Conscious/Unconscious, short stories and drawings by Michael Hafftka, Six Gallery Press 2007,
In the Penal Colony, a short story by Franz Kafka illustrated by Michael Hafftka, Limited Editions Club 1987,
The Terror of Loch Ness, a novel by Che Elias, illustrated by Michael Hafftka, Six Gallery Press 2007,
Circular Stairs, Distress in the Mirrors, poems by Peter Klappert with art by Michael Hafftka, Six Gallery Press 2008,
To Die Next To You, poems by Rodger Kamenetz with art by Michael Hafftka, Six Gallery Press, 2013

Select Public Collections

Museum of Modern art, New York
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Brooklyn Museum, New York
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA
New York Public Library Collection, New York
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Fine Arts Houston, TX
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
Housatonic Museum of Art, Bridgeport, CT
Art Museum of S. Texas, Corpus Christi, TX
University Museum at Texas State University, Houston
Yeshiva University Museum, New York, NY See less