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| Born in a tenement apartment on New York’s Lower East Side, Sternberg was the son of Eastern European immigrants. As a boy of eleven he started taking classes from the art club at his school and on Saturdays at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Sternberg began his forty-four-year association with the Art Students League in 1922, first as a part-time student and then as an instructor in etching, lithography, and composition. His development and subsequent career are inextricably linked with the history of twentieth-century American art.
During the 1930s, Sternberg transformed his sociopolitical convictions into images championing the cause of labor. His representations, rendered with an expressive hand and intense color in both paintings and prints, depicted the difficult and dangerous lives of contemporary coal miners and steel-mill workers. In later decades, Sternberg used his art to further his social conscience, particularly as a voice against fascism and as an advocate for civil rights. His later artistic vision, however, grew increasingly self-reflective, as seen in his investigations of such themes as myth and ritual and the spiritual underpinnings of Orthodox Judaism. Moreover, he explored his own identity by producing many self-portraits and by publishing the suite of prints called Sternberg: A Life in Woodcuts. Landscape was a subject Sternberg rarely treated. Mountains and Birches of Utah is his reflection on a landscape surrounding Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, where he was an artist in residence during the summers of 1957 and 1958. The powerful form of the mountain, silhouetted against a burnt-orange sky, is rendered in broad, rectangular brushstrokes. Mountains and Birches of Utah is Sternberg’s spiritual response to the majesty of the Wasatch Mountains.  (For Grades K-2) Which primary colors do you see in this painting? Secondary colors? Are these the real colors what you would see in nature? Which warm colors do you see in this painting? Cool colors? How do these colors make you feel when you look at this painting? Which textures do you see in this painting? Which patterns do you see in this painting? What is the subject of this painting? (For Grades 3-5) Which primary colors do you see in this painting? Secondary colors? Are these the real colors what you would see in nature? Which warm colors do you see in this painting? Cool colors? How do these colors make you feel when you look at this painting? How does the artist use perspective in this painting? Repetition? How does the artist represent texture in this painting? Where do you see the dark areas in the painting? Light areas? Where is the light source? How does the artist show this in the painting? Does this artwork look real to you? Why or why not? |
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Harry Sternberg United States 1904-2001 Mountains and Birches of Utah Oil on board, ca. 1957 Museum purchase with funds provided by the Robert and Karen Hoehn Family 2001:16 © San Diego Museum of Art |
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