{{Short description|American artist (1922–2022)}} '''Albert Kresch''' (July 4, 1922 – March 13, 2022) was a New York School painter who lived and worked in Brooklyn, New York. One of the original members of the Jane Street Gallery in the 1940s, he exhibited in later years at Tibor de Nagy Gallery and Salander-O’Reilly Gallery. He is best known for landscape and still life compositions painted with evocatively rhythmic forms and vibrant colors.

==Biography== Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania on July 4, 1922,<ref>{{cite web|last=Kresch|first=Albert L|title=United States Public Records Index|url=https://familysearch.org|publisher=familysearch|accessdate=20 November 2013}}</ref> Kresch moved with his family to New York City in the 1930s. He began studying figure drawing at the Brooklyn Museum, but soon enrolled in the Hans Hofmann School. There he met Leland Bell, Louisa Matthíasdóttir, Nell Blaine, Judith Rothschild, Robert De Niro Sr., and Virginia Admiral among other artists of note. These friendships proved a source of inspiration throughout much of his life.<br />In the 1940s, he exhibited abstract work in his first two shows at the Jane Street Gallery, at a time when Abstract Expressionism was gathering steam. He soon embarked, however, on an independent path, inspired by his friend Jean Hélion to return to representational painting. Friendships with poets Denise Levertov, and Frank O’Hara reflect the breadth of his interests. His painting philosophy was a subject of Levertov's poems "The Dog of Art" and "Kresch's Studio."<br />Kresch won a Fulbright scholarship in 1953, aided in part by a letter of recommendation from his friend Willem de Kooning. Later exhibitions of his work at Salander-O’Reilly Galleries won favorable reviews, and he was elected member of the National Academy in 2005. Kresch was an art teacher during the 1950s at the historically Black Hampton Institute, where he taught student Benjamin Leroy Wigfall, whose painting "Chimneys" was among the first works by an African American that was purchased by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. <ref>{{Cite news |date=1951-05-27 |title=Student art to be shown at Institute |work=Daily Press, Newport News, VA |agency=via newspapers.com. |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/231057010 |access-date=2023-05-17}}</ref>

Kresch died on March 13, 2022, at the age of 99.<ref>{{cite web |title=Albert Kresch |url=https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/nytimes/name/albert-kresch-obituary?id=34013556 |website=Legacy |access-date=5 April 2022}}</ref>

== Public Collections == Everhart Museum, Scranton, Pennsylvania<br /> National Academy of Design, New York<br /> Wright State University Galleries, Dayton, Ohio

==Bibliography== ''Artists' Theatre: Four Plays'' by Artists' Theatre (1960) p.&nbsp;81<br /> ''The Poet's Work: 29 Poets on the Origins and Practice of Their Art'' by Reginald Gibbons (1989) p.&nbsp;258<br />''Lush Life: The Biography of Billy Strayhorn'' by David Hajdu (1996) p.&nbsp;126<br />''The New York Times'' "Art in Review: Albert Kresch" by David Kimmelman (30 April 2002)<br />''New and Selected Essays'' by Denise Levertov (1992) p.&nbsp;72<br />''New Directions'' 20 by James Laughlin, Peter Glassgold, Fredrick R. Martin p.&nbsp;127<br />''The Letters of Denise Levertov and William Carlos Williams'' by Denise Levertov and William Carlos Williams (1998) p.&nbsp;49<br />''Turning the Feather Around'' by George Morrison and Margot Galt (1998) p.&nbsp;74<br />''The New York Sun'' "Seeing the Forest and the Trees" by Maureen Mullarkey (27 July 2006)<br />''Originals: American Women Artists'' by Eleanor C. Munro (2000) p.&nbsp;265<br />''Tracking the Marvelous: A Life in the New York Art World'' by John Bernard Myers (1984) p 166 & 174<br />''Storefront: A Community on 129th Street and Madison Avenue'' by Ned O'Gorman (1970)<br />''Antiques and the Arts Weekly'' "Paintings by Albert Kresch at the Salander O'Reilly Galleries" (5 April 2002)<br />''Louisa Matthiasdottir'' by Jed Perl (1999) p.&nbsp;56, 60, 75 and others.<br />''What Did I Do?: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Larry Rivers'' by Larry Rivers and Arnold Weinstein (1993) p166, 169-71, 175, 176<br />''Nell Blaine: Her Life and Art'' by Martica Sawin and Nell Blaine (1998) p 19,20,29,33,138<br />''Selected Art Writings'' by James Schuyler (1998) p.&nbsp;161<br />''Just the Thing: Selected Letters of James Schuyler, 1951-1991'' by James Schuyler (2004) p.&nbsp;50<br /> ''The Washington Post'' "In Jane Freilicher's Landscapes and Kate McGarry's Jazz Improvisations, There's Room to Roam" by Terry Teachout (May 5, 2002)<br />''Leland Bell'' by Fox Weber (1986) p.&nbsp;53, 56

==External links== Hot and Cool, Freedom and Structure: ALBERT KRESCH in conversation with Deborah Garwood and Craig Taylor [http://www.artcritical.com/studiovisit/DGCTKresch.htm]<br />''Gabriel Laderman on Art'' Al Kresch Essay Accompanying His Show [https://web.archive.org/web/20090213020639/http://gabrielladerman.vox.com/library/post/al-kresch-essay-accompanying-his-show.html]<br />"Albert Kresch: Paintings at Wright State University Art Gallery" by Walter King [https://web.archive.org/web/20070922105456/http://blog.absolutearts.com/blogs/archives/00000302.html]<br /> Al Kresch - New Work, Sensitive Skin magazine [http://sensitiveskinmagazine.com/new-work-al-kresch/]

==References== {{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kresch, Albert}} Category:1922 births Category:2022 deaths Category:People from Scranton, Pennsylvania Category:Artists from Brooklyn