Arnold Friedman

American painter Arnold Aaron Friedman, initially self-taught, studied at the Art Students League of New York. In 1909, he took a six-month leave of absence from his job to study art in Paris. He began in the style of the French Impressionists, then worked with abstract grids inspired by Cubism, but returned to a more Impressionist style of painting, albeit with abstract elements. Friedman painted landscapes, figures, sports scenes, and later still lifes, primarily as paintings, but also as watercolors and engravings. He created a remarkable oeuvre as an American modernist in the early 20th century but was not appreciated until long after his death.

Friedman probably submitted three lithographs “hors concours”. It is not certain whether these included the detected Race track (16 x 36 cm) and Polo (23 x 36 cm), both with the same sheet size of 29 x 41 cm. Jamaica Race Track, the title of the third lithograph, was a racetrack in New York that existed from 1903 until the 1950s. Polo Player was a painting, maybe equivalent to Polo (oil on canvas, 41 x 64 cm), dated 1920.