Born Zorach Gorfinkel in 1887Bold text, in Jurbarkas (Russian: Eurburg) in Lithuania as the eighth of ten children, Zorach (then his given name) emigrated with his family to the United States in 1894. They settled in Cleveland, Ohio under the name Finkelstein . In school, his first name was changed to William by a teacher. Zorach stayed in Ohio for almost 15 years pursuing his artistic endeavors. He worked as a lithographer as a teenager and went on to study painting with Henry G. Keller at the Cleveland School of Art from 1905-1907. Zorach continued his artistic training at the Art Students League in New York City and at La Palette in Paris.
William and his wife joined a small group of modern artists in New England, exhibiting Fauvist paintings at the Armory Show in 1913 as well as Cubist and Expressionist works at the Forum Exhibition in New York in 1916. Zorach's works can be found in numerous private, corporate, and public collections across the country including such acclaimed locales as the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of Art, and the National Gallery of Art, Radio City Music Hall, as well as numerous college and university collections.[2]
(b Eurburg [now Yurbarkas], Lithuania, 1889; d Bath, ME, 15 Nov 1966). Sculptor, painter and writer of Lithuanian birth, husband of (1) Marguerite Zorach. He emigrated to the USA with his family in 1893, settling in Cleveland, where he worked as a lithographer (1902-8) and studied painting with Henry G. Keller (1869-1949) at the School of Art (1905-7). In New York he received academic training in painting at the Art Students League, and he studied at La Palette in Paris (1910-11). William and Marguerite Zorach became part of a small group of modern artists in New York, in Provincetown, MA, and in Maine, exhibiting Fauvist paintings at the Armory Show in 1913 and Cubist and Expressionist works at the Forum Exhibition in New York in 1916.
William Zorach was born in Eurberg, Lithuania. His father emigrated to America in the hope of bettering his condition. The Zorachs settled in Ohio, and William attended the public schools. In 1903 he went to Cleveland to learn a trade and attended art school at night. He studied painting at the National Academy of Design in New York City (1907-1910) and then went to Paris. There he saw his first modern art and was particularly attracted to cubism. Before long Zorach was painting abstractly. In 1911 he returned to America. Two of his paintings were accepted for the famous 1913 Armory Show in New York.
