About the Artist

Louis Ribak was born in Russian Poland in 1902. At age ten his family emigrated to the United States and settled in New York. In the early 1920s he studied under John Sloan at the Art Students League. During the 1930s Ribak found employment as a muralist with the Works Project Administration. working alongside Mexican muralist Diego Rivera on the mural in Rockefeller Center. Ribak worked in a social realist manner. creating vibrant images of urban life. His work was included in the 1934 Venice Biennial art exhibition. In 1942 he married artist Bea Mandelman and at the invitation of John Sloan, a Santa Fe summer resident, moved to New Mexico. The couple opened the Taos Valley Art School, where they instructed, in addition to developing a more modernist approach to their own work. They were part of the founding of the Taos Art Association and the Stables Gallery in the early 50's. In 1959 Ribak and Mandelman opened Gallery Ribak, exhibiting their own work as well as work by other Taos artists.