“Fiene was born in Elberfeld, Germany in 1894 to Henry and Maria Fiene. Though his passion and talent for art was noted by his family at an early age, he initially intended to become an engineer and apprenticed as a teenager with a mining construction company.” (1)
“He fled to the United States in 1912 via the Netherlands to avoid German military service in World War I.” (2)
“Upon reaching the United States Fiene began to focus on his passion for art. He worked for a decorative painter until he could enroll in the National Academy of Design in 1914.” (1)
“He studied art at the National Academy of Design in New York City from 1914 to 1918, taking day classes with Thomas Maynard and evening classes with Leon Kroll. Fiene continued his studies at the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design in Paris from 1916 to 1918,” (3)
“Fiene went on to study at some of the most prestigious art institutions in New York giving him a broad range of influences and experiences. At the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design he studied the masters and was particularly influenced by works of Rembrandt, Daumier, and Breughel. Fiene began exhibiting with the assistance of his professors, including Robert Henri. He held his first solo exhibition at the McDowell Club. This exhibition proved very successful and gave him exposure to the New York art scene outside of the academic sphere. After exhibiting at the Society of Independent Artists in 1920, Fiene moved part-time to the artist colony in Woodstock, New York. In 1922, art scholar William Murrell wrote a monograph of him as part of what was to become his "Younger Artists Series". Fiene was the first artist profiled and he received considerable notice from the work.” (1)
“In the early Twenties Ernest Fiene painted mostly landscapes of Woodstock and both the Ramapo and Hudson River Valleys. He was the subject of the first monograph for the Younger Artists Series in 1922. Published in Woodstock, the series went on to include Alexander Brook, Peggy
Bacon, and Yasuo Kuniyoshi.” (3)
“The extremely versatile graphic artist was best known for his lithographs and etchings of landscapes and New York city views.” (2)
“By 1926 Fiene had attracted the dealer Frank K.M. Rehn, who gave him a one-man exhibition that year, which travelled to the Boston Arts Club. C.W. Kraushaar Galleries gave Fiene a one-man exhibition of urban, landscape, portrait, and still life paintings in 1927. Julianna Force, the director of the Whitney Studio Club and first director of the Whitney Museum of American Art, included two of Fiene's paintings in a fall exhibition in 1928. The Whitney Studio Club showed Fiene's paintings in a two-man exhibition with Glenn O. Coleman that year and acquired three of Fiene's paintings. Also in 1928 Fiene became affiliated with Edith Halpert's Downtown Gallery where he had an exhibition of 20 lithographs in the spring.” (3)
“Fiene...became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1927.” (4)
“After marrying his wife, Jeanette, Fiene decided to return to school and study at the Art Students League in New York City in an effort to expand his craftsmanship and modernize his artistic style. It was at the Art Students League that Fiene made connections with prominent lithographic printers George C. Miller and Charles C. Locke, who assisted in the distribution of his paintings through print.” (1)
“Fiene sold his house in Woodstock in 1928 to spend more of his time in New York City.” (3)
“He traveled to Paris to work on his figurative and landscape skills at L'Academie de La Grande Chaumiere. While there he worked in the studio of his friend, the artist Jules Pascin. Despite there being many acquaintances and associates in France at that time Fiene deeply missed the inspiration he found in the New York landscapes.” (1)
“Fiene was included in the Museum of Modern Art's exhibition Painting and Sculpture by Living Americans in December of 1931. Visiting New York, Henri Matisse saw the exhibition and called Fiene's Razing Buildings, West 49th Street the finest painting he had seen in New York. Fiene had two mural studies from his Mechanical Progress series exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art's exhibition Murals by American Painters and Photographers in 1932. Fiene sent View from my Window which depicts Fiene working on a lithograph stone while looking out his window to the newly completed Empire State Building to the Carnegie International in 1931. In 1932 Fiene participated in the first Biennial of American Painting at the Whitney Museum and his prints were included in exhibitions at the Downtown Gallery and the Wehye Gallery. In the same year, Fiene was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship to further study mural painting in Florence, Italy.” (3)
“Again after some time abroad, he missed the inspiration of the American landscape and returned to New York.” (1)
“From 1938 to 1964, he taught at the Art Students League and was also a member of the supervising faculty of the Famous Artists School in Westbury, Connecticut.” (4)
“Fiene's dealer during the 1950s and 1960s was Midtown Galleries in New York. In 1959 Midtown gave Fiene a solo exhibition of his most recent, more abstracted New York City subjects, which received glowing reviews. Fiene enjoyed widespread respect among the community of artists in America. Elected president of the Artists Equity Association in 1953, Fiene remained that organization's president in an honorary capacity until his death in 1965. He maintained a long time personal correspondence with the artists George Grosz, Jules Pascin, Gaston Lachaise, Stuart Davis, and Thomas Hart Benton.” (3)
“On a trip to Paris in 1965, where he was working on various color lithographs, Fiene suffered a heart attack and died on August 10th.” (1)
Reference
1. The Caldwell Gallery Staff. Ernest Fiene [internet]. The Caldwell Gallery [cited 2019 Dec 4]. Available from: https://www.caldwellgallery.com/bios/fiene_biography.html
2. Olympic Sports Staff. Ernest Fiene [internet]. SR/Olympic Sports; 2016 [cited 2019 Dec 4]. Available from: https://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/athletes/fi/ernest-fiene-1.html
3. D. Wigmore Fine Art Staff. Ernest Fiene (1894-1965) [internet]. New York, NY: D. Wigmore Fine Art, Inc. [cited 2019 Dec 4]. Available from: https://www.dwigmore.com/fiene.html
4. Askart staff. Ernest Fiene [internet]. [cited 2019 Dec 4]. Available from: https://www.askart.com/artist_bio/Ernest_Fiene/24178/Ernest_Fiene.aspx