Adolf Dehn

Adolf Dehn was born in Minnesota, November 22, 1895 and he died in New York City, May 19, 1968. He was one of the most notable lithographers of the 20th century. Throughout his artistic career, Dehn participated in and helped define some important movements in American art, including Regionalism, Social Realism, and caricature. He was known for both his technical skills and his high-spirited, droll depictions of human foibles. Dehn began creating artwork at the age of six and by the time of his death had created nearly 650 images. After high school he went to the Minneapolis School of Art, known today as the Minneapolis College of Art and Design where he met Wanda Gág. Later he and Gag were two of only a dozen students in the country to earn a scholarship to the Art Students League of New York. After graduation, he was drafted to serve in World War I, but he was a conscientious objector. Dehn was imprisoned for two years for refusing to serve in the military. After the war was over, he went to Europe. In Paris and Vienna he belonged to a group of intellectuals and artists, including E.E. Cummings. A number of the caricatures he drew depicting the Roaring 20s, burlesque, opera houses, and the café scene and appeared in such magazines as Vanity Fair. His favorite medium was lithography, and he alternated between spoofing high society and creating beautiful landscapes. It was in Paris that Dehn met his first wife, Mura Ziperovitch, a dancer who had left the Soviet Union. In 1929, he returned to the United States with his wife. As the Great Depression had taken hold of the country, they were desperately poor, and their financial difficulties contributed to their ultimate divorce. In the 1930s, his work began to appear in magazines such as the New Yorker and Vogue.