{{short description|American artist}} {{Infobox artist | name = Harold Lehman | image = Harold Lehman, Self Portrait, 1933.jpg | imagesize = | caption = Self Portrait, 1933 | birth_name = | other_names = | birth_date = {{Birth-date|1913}} | birth_place = New York, New York | death_date = {{death date and age|2006|4|2|1913|mf=y}} | death_place = Leonia, New Jersey | education = | field = Painter, muralist | training = | movement = | works = | patrons = | awards = | spouse = | partner = | website = {{URL|haroldlehman.com}} }} '''Harold Lehman''' (1913–2006) was an American artist known for his murals for the Works Progress Administration (WPA).<ref name="Archives of American Art">{{cite web |title=Oral history interview with Harold Lehman, 1997 Mar. 28 {{!}} Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution |url=https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-harold-lehman-12894 |website=Archives of American Art |publisher=Smithsonian Institution |access-date=21 November 2022 |language=en}}</ref>

Lehman was born in 1913 in New York City.<ref name="Smithsonian American Art Museum">{{cite web |title=Harold Lehman |url=https://americanart.si.edu/artist/harold-lehman-2870 |website=Smithsonian American Art Museum |access-date=21 November 2022}}</ref> He moved to California as a teenager and attended Manual Arts High School in Los Angeles. There he met and became close friends with Jackson Pollock, Philip Guston (formerly Phillip Goldstein), and Reuben Kadish.

In 1931, upon graduating from Manual Arts High School, Lehman won a citywide competition for a sculpture scholarship to Otis Art Institute. He also became interested in the Post-Surrealist movement in Los Angeles and studied under Lorser Feitelson and Helen Lundeberg<ref name="Los Angeles Times">{{cite web |last1=Rourke |first1=Mary |title=Harold Lehman, 92; Influential Muralist, Active Artist in the Post-Surrealist Movement |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-apr-12-me-lehman12-story.html |website=Los Angeles Times |access-date=21 November 2022 |date=12 April 2006}}</ref>

In 1932, Lehman became an apprentice to David Alfaro Siqueiros, the Mexican muralist who was in Los Angeles working on a number of projects, including the first large-scale our door mural in the United States, Tropical America," ("La América Tropical".) Lehman joined his group, [https://www.haroldlehman.com/siqueiros-and-bloc-of-painters Block of Painters], working on fresco murals portraying the discrimination and mistreatment of African Americans. All of the mural panels were destroyed the night before the exhibition to the public by the Los Angeles Red Squad.

In 1935, Lehman returned to New York. When Siqueiros came to New York to attend first American Artist's Congress he and Lehman got together and formed the Siqueiros Workshop. As Lehman said, "The basic thing about mural painting is that it’s a message that the artist is giving to the public and, in turn, the message must be received by the public. This kind of give-and-take is an extremely important and valuable one, to both the social and artistic life of this country."<ref name="Archives of American Art" />

In 1937, Lehman began working for the Federal Art Project.<ref name="Landes">{{cite web |last1=Landes |first1=Jennifer |title=A Man of the New Deal |url=https://www.easthamptonstar.com/arts/2022915/man-new-deal |website=The East Hampton Star |access-date=21 November 2022 |language=en}}</ref> He created the mural ''Man's Daily Bread'' for the Riker's Island Prison.<ref name="New York Correction History Society">{{cite web |title=Story of Rikers Penitentiary mess hall WPA mural and photo |url=http://www.correctionhistory.org/html/museum/gallery/hdmmural/mural&photostory.html |website=New York Correction History Society |access-date=21 November 2022}}</ref>

In 1941, he was chosen by the Section of Fine Arts under the US Treasury Department to design a mural for a post office in Renovo, Pennsylvania, "Locomotive Repair Operation"<ref name="New Deal Art Registry">{{cite web |title=Renovo Post Office |url=https://www.newdealartregistry.org/rendersite/RenovoPostOffice/Renovo/PA/ |website=New Deal Art Registry |access-date=21 November 2022}}</ref>

Moving to Woodstock, NY, in 1941, Lehman became part of the local Woodstock art scene and became good friends with Hervey White, a neighbor that lived down the road. He also began creating posters in 1943 for the US Treasury Department to support War Bond Drives. Artists were commissioned through the Associated American Artists Gallery in New York. It was through the AAA Gallery that Lehman was hired to do several paintings relating to the War. One poster ''The Paratrooper''.<ref name="United States Holocaust Memorial Museum">{{cite web |title=Invest in Invasion/Buy War Bonds |url=https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn597139 |website=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |access-date=21 November 2022}}</ref> became an iconic poster of the day. Two others were used as advertisements to support the War Bond Drive.

In 1946, Lehman returned to New York and taught art at his studio<ref name="Los Angeles Times"/> and in 1950 married one of his students, Leona Koutras, with whom he had two children.<ref name="European Holocaust Research Infrastructure">{{cite web |title=Invest in Invasion/Buy War Bonds |url=https://portal.ehri-project.eu/units/us-005578-irn601404-irn597139 |website=European Holocaust Research Infrastructure |access-date=21 November 2022}}</ref>

Throughout the 1960s - 80's he worked as a Scenic Designer & Scenic Artist in television, movies, and commercials. He also was chief designer of the Coca-Cola Pavilion at the New York World's Fair and later the World of Man at Expo '67 in Montreal Canada.

In 1997 he was interviewed for the Archives of American Art where he discussed his work and close association with fellow artists.<ref name="Archives of American Art"/>

Lehman died on April 2, 2006, in Leonia, New Jersey.<ref name="Los Angeles Times"/> His work is in the collection of the National Gallery of Art,<ref name="National Gallery of Art">{{cite web |title=Harold Lehman |url=https://www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.7763.html |website=National Gallery of Art |access-date=21 November 2022}}</ref> where he contributed to the Index of American Design, and in the Smithsonian American Art Museum.<ref name="Smithsonian American Art Museum"/> His photographic collection is in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.<ref name="United States Holocaust Memorial Museum2">{{cite web |title=Harold Lehman photograph collection |url=https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn597321 |website=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |access-date=21 November 2022}}</ref>

In 1995 his work was included in the exhibition ''Pacific Dreams: Currents of Surrealism and Fantasy in California Art, 1934-1957'' at the Hammer Museum.<ref name="Landes"/> In 2022 the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center held an exhibition of Lehman's work entitled ''Harold Lehman: The Nineteen Thirties''.<ref name="Art Forum">{{cite web |title=Harold Lehman: The Nineteen Thirties |url=https://www.artforum.com/artguide/pollock-krasner-house-and-study-center-15837/harold-lehman-the-nineteen-thirties-207210 |website=Art Forum |access-date=21 November 2022}}</ref><ref name="Landes"/>

==Gallery== <gallery widths="200px" heights="200px"> Harold Lehman, The Driller (mural, Rikers Island, New York), 1937.jpg|''The Driller (mural, Rikers Island, New York)'', 1937 Harold Lehman - Invest in Invasion, Buy War Bonds, c. 1939-1945.jpg|''Invest in Invasion, Buy War Bond''s, c. 1939-1945 </gallery>

==References== {{Reflist}}

==External links== * [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfL_gUUPPm8IkGclndmlJmg Harold Lehman American Artist] at YouTube {{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lehman, Harold}} Category:1913 births Category:2006 deaths Category:Artists from New York City Category:Federal Art Project artists