Kálmán Kubinyi (American, 1906–1973)

b. 1906 — d. 1973

Born in Cleveland, Kalman Kubinyi was raised in the city's large Hungarian community. While a child, he attended art classes taught by William Zorach at the Jewish Council for Education Alliance. Primarily financed by scholarships, Kubinyi attended the Cleveland School of Art, graduating in 1926. In 1927 he studied in Munich with his uncle Sandor Kubinyi von Demenfalva, who introduced him to intaglio processes. During the 1920s-40s, Kubinyi was active in the graphic arts as an artist, a teacher, and an administrator. He frequently participated in competitive print exhibitions in Cleveland, Dayton, Chicago, and New York City, including the annual May Shows at the Cleveland Museum of Art (1926-45), the Venice Biennale, and the New York World's Fair (1939). He taught print-making at the Huntington Polytechnic Institute and the Cleveland School of Art, 1936-40, as well as at the Cleveland Museum of Art. In 1930 he founded the Cleveland Print Makers and was listed as its president until 1941. He also organized the Cleveland Print Market in 1932 and was its director until 1934, when his brother took over the business end. In 1933 Kubinyi married his former classmate, the artist Doris Hall. He was the supervisor for the Cleveland graphic arts project of the Works Progress Administration, 1935-39, and district supervisor of the entire Cleveland WPA project, 1939. He was active in the Cleveland Artist's Union and a member of the American Artists' Congress, participating in their exhibition America Today (1936). He contributed to the Cleveland cultural periodicals IV Arts and Crossroads. After two sessions as a visiting instructor at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, 1948-50, Kubinyi moved to Gloucester, Massachusetts, and opened a gallery. He and his wife worked at the Bettinger Company in Waltham, Massachusetts, making enameled murals, but were forced to quit because the process made Doris Hall severely ill. The couple moved to Stockbridge, Massachusetts, in 1963. In 1967 Kubinyi began working for Stockbridge School as director of the art department. Transformations in Cleveland Art. (CMA, 1996), pp.232-33.