6,000,000
Sidney H. Klein
Hollywood, Florida USA 33021
CV
-This entire series, "Two Holocausts: One Artist," has been added to the Art Museum Research Center of Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, Israel.
-The Gross-Rosen Muzeum in Rogoznica, Poland, will solo artist exhibit this show, January-April 2026, and has requested a new work in commemoration.
-‘My Zaidy’ will be on exhibit in the Heller Museum of Art in NYC, July 2025- June 2026.
-My work is featured globally by the Combat Antisemitism Movement.
-Muzeum Sztuki Nowoczesnej/The Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Poland, is considering 2027 for exhibiting my work.
-Other major European, North American, and Israeli institutions are considering exhibitions.
I've always sketched. My earliest memory is a pencil sketch of a passing airplane, complete with foreshortened wings, rendered in my mother's address booklet. I dual majored in Fine Art and Economics at Brooklyn College, taking coursework across various disciplines including figure drawing, sculpture, photography, etching, and painting. I focused on watercolor in my spare time. I graduated in 1969 Cum Laude with Honors in Art having studied individually under Prof. Murray Gross, and was the winner of the Senior Show. I was fascinated by the effect certain adjacent colors had on the vision and experimented in college.
Being newly engaged, unconvinced of my talent, and chicken to the core, I forsook art. Instead, I pursued a business career, earning an MBA in 1970 from the Wharton Graduate School of Business, and was awarded the Thomas F. Joyce Memorial Fellowship. I had a rewarding career but made no art. Following retirement from a 50+ year business career, I turned back to art. To my total surprise, I prospered in Advanced Painting at the Graduate School of Art of Florida International University.
I opened Atelier Klein in 2023.
October 7 (Black Saturday), with its murders and atrocities, had a profound effect on my psyche. The news and the comparisons being made to the Holocaust prompted me to look at Holocaust photos for the first time in my life. Before, I could pretend the Holocaust never happened. No more and never again. My painting, the Holocaust, and October 7 came together. My spirit was aroused, and I began to paint with purpose for the first time in my life. I am transfixed.
I now exclusively sought to expose mankind's inhumanity and to document reality as I feel it. The subject had an emotional and visual grip. I realized that my resultant work evokes strong emotions in me and the viewer. I want to apply this talent for good.
My goal is to mitigate antisemitism through the emotions that my work evokes.
This is my WHY.
As to the HOW: My foundational visual source is B&W Holocaust photos, the majority taken by the Soviet and US military. By some cosmic mystery, an element in a photo will draw my interest. The rest of the image is of much less importance to me. I'll render my vision of this element, usually in pencil, on 140 lb. rough watercolor paper, which provides the weight and surface texture I prefer.
A note on why paper? I paint by rotating the work through 360 degrees as needed, again and again. The painting is clamped to a drawing board suspended between my knees and the worktable. I am sitting. This gives me the maneuverability I need. Plus, paper is space-saving. But most importantly, I paint in glazes, and I love the paper/paint translucency effect. A leftover from my watercolour days.
The cosmic mystery includes both form and color. I feel no constraints. My work is all Golden acrylic colors and mediums. I paint in glazes with a gloss medium. I'm currently using artificial mongoose hair brushes.
I continue to capture mankind's inhumanity.
Please address questions and comments to me in the Contact section.