Life
Burton Wasserman (1929-2017) was born in Brooklyn, NY to Orthodox Jewish immigrants from Poland.
He attended Brooklyn College, where he studied painting & became friends with artists Ad Reinhart and Burgoyne Diller. While at college, he also met his future wife, Sarah Masher. Graduating in 1950, his lifelong passion for abstract art was now firmly established.
After serving in the Army from 1951 to 1953, Burton taught art classes at various schools while pursuing his art education doctorate from Columbia University, which he received in 1956.
Burton's strong love of art — and his desire to share that love with the world — eventually led him to apply for a teaching job at colleges. He eagerly accepted a position at Glassboro State, NJ (now Rowan University), where he taught for 44 years (1960 - 2004). During his distinguished career, he taught courses in printmaking, painting, design, art education, modern art, and art appreciation.
Throughout his career as an art professor & a writer, he actively produced paintings, prints and sculptures. He wrote 5 books and hundreds of magazine articles about artists and their works. His art critiques and commentary appeared regularly in Prime Time Arts and Entertainment, and the monthly Delaware Valley Journal, Art Matters.
Professor Wasserman was active as a board member for numerous local and national art associations and was an active member in the Philadelphia local art community.
His work had been exhibited widely and he had numerous solo exhibitions. Some of his work is in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, New Jersey State Museum (Trenton), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), Staatsgalerie (Stuttgart) and the Montreal Museum of Art amongst others.
Philosophy
"I have no preconceived notion of how an image will turn out," says the artist.
"What my art isn’t," Burton says, "are pictures of something. They don’t represent anything in the physical world. Each one is a created reality. They don’t look like any thing, any place, or any person. They are expressive of ideas, feelings, revelations, points of view and insights; and making them is not simple. They proceed by fits and starts, guided by intuition."
"My work is essentially metaphorical," says Wasserman, "Each painting is a picture of itself. Each is the accumulation of a half century of inquiry, impulses, feelings and observation coming out of layers of experiences gathered over time."
Later in his career, sharply defined geometric shapes began showing up in his images, for which he has his own interpretation:
"I believe they reflect a will to order, a need to project a utopian image with a place for all existence living in harmony and peace with one another. I believe that it lies within the potential of human effort to bring this world to within a more organized pursuit."
"I do place great emphasis on the pursuit of meaningfulness," Burton says. "My work provides me with meaningful insights into the potential to make for a better world."