Jack Ornstein

THE FAMILY PORTRAIT

If you had to describe them to someone who had never met them, what kind of person were they?

Jack Ornstein was a kind, gracious, and welcoming person, with a warm smile (and often a twinkle in his eye) and subtle sense of humor. He was a very creative artist, a gifted writer, and exceptionally articulate individual. He was also an extraordinary camp director (in his younger years, according to his peers), a very talented art teacher, and an outstanding school principal. He made friends easily, had many long-lasting friendships, and was often called upon—by former students, young colleagues, etc.—for help and counseling. And he was especially devoted to his family—his wife, children, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren. 

THE PARIS YEARS

What do you know about their time in Paris? Where did they live, work, spend time, or find their community?

He lived at the Hotel Brea, 14 rue Brea, close to the Luxembourg Gardens (now the Hotel Jardin le Brea) and took classes at the Paris branch of the New York School of Fine and Applied Art (Parsons). I believe that he also took classes at the Academie Colarossi. We know that he published drawings/cartoons in the Boulevardier and the London Looker-On. In terms of community, a friend and fellow-student at Parsons—Lawrence Lariar—was his roommate at the Brea. (And I know that the time in Paris—and at the Hotel Brea—was important to him, because many family members and former art students of his made the “pilgrimage” to 14 rue Brea to take a photo or draw a picture of it!). I know that there were others, but I don’t know who they were, although I’d bet that Adolph Shus was one of them.

THE CREATIVE LIFE

What did making art or writing mean to them? Are there particular subjects, styles, places, or ideas they returned to again and again?

Art was at the core of his being. In fact, I’m told that the joke in the family was that my father was so devoted to his art that he wouldn’t marry and have a family. That all changed when he met my mother and married at age 33! In terms of subjects and styles, my father’s talent was such that he could draw and paint in many different styles. At the center of his work was a very strong sense of line. He would say that he was influenced by Chinese and Japanese calligraphy and drawing, and by the Cubists and by artists such as Klee, Dufy, and Miro. He worked in many different media—watercolors (representational landscapes and seascapes that became semi-abstract over the years; oils and acrylics (abstracts and geometrically focused pieces); pen (and brush) and ink (drawings of a variety of sources. He often included figures and faces (often his own) in pieces. 

BEYOND THE BYLINE

What do you know about their life outside of their work? What occupied their days when they were not drawing, painting, writing, or creating?

When he returned from Paris, he had a decision to make. He had had a fair amount of experience in cartooning and commercial art, and I think that he did a bit more commercial work when he got home. However, he didn’t want to continue in that vein. Rather, he wanted to do fine art, but it was very hard to earn a living as a fine artist during the Depression.  At the same time, he was very active in the Boy Scouts—as a scout leader, summer-time camp director, etc.—and because he was good at working with youngsters, he decided to go into high school art teaching.  I believe that this was around 1936.  And teaching led to its own parallel track in art education and later school administration. 

So, in a sense, he was leading two parallel lives—one in the world of education and one in the world of his own development as an artist. He maintained his own evolving program of original art and exhibited and sold some of what he produced. But he merged these two lines from time to time—by writing, editing, and illustrating magazines for teachers and administrators in the New York City public schools. Along the way, he also published three books (Lettering for Fun, 1939; Paintbrush fun for Home Decoration, 1944; Decorating Unpainted Furniture, 1946) and completed Master’s and Doctoral degrees in art education.

WHAT SURVIVES

What material from their life and career has remained in the family: photographs, letters, drawings, sketchbooks, publications, stories, or objects? Is there one piece that feels especially meaningful to you?

We have a remarkable collection of my father’s art, probably a few hundred paintings and hundreds of drawings, sketches, studies, etc. We probably have close to 20 pieces in our apartment, and each of our two daughters and their families have similar numbers, or more, and my sister has a small collection of our father’s paintings. And now that three of our grandchildren have finished college and are out in “the world,” they each have a few of their great-grandfather’s paintings. Finally, because we have been reluctant to sell my dad’s works, my wife and I have given pieces to close friends. In addition to the pieces that are hanging, we have numerous others that are in storage, as well as several portfolios.

When I look at the corpus of my father’s work, I believe that I can see a throughline from his time in Paris and it revolves, quite literally, around his sense of line and ability to generate a figure or scene with a minimal “expenditure” of line. I think that I see this “creative draftsmanship” through the years in the various styles and media in which he worked. In terms of preferences, I am particularly partial to the watercolors that he did in period between 1949 and 1955, as they were lovely and skillful depictions of outdoor scenes—farms, lakes, mountains, the seacoast. These were representational pieces and became more abstract over the years. I also love his very detailed pen-and-ink and pencil drawings, as well has his cartoon-like figures. And among my favorites are the pieces that he did in the four years before his death – abstract figures, mostly faces, in watercolors and acrylics. My father believed that he was on to something new in this work, using color in ways in which he had previously used line. Finally, at the end of a day painting, he would use paint that was left over to create (very quickly) wonderful faces—mostly with his brushes but sometimes working only with a palette knife. I include these pieces in my listing of favorites.

THE PERSON YOU REMEMBER

What story about them has been passed down in your family that you think reveals something about who they really were?

I have many memories of my father as a working artist and educator who was fully engaged with his family. He introduced me to the world of art, to the world of camping, hiking, and canoeing, to the world of serious scholarship, and to the importance of contributing to others and to the community. I grew up witnessing a stream of people who would come to the house, climb the stairs to my father’s attic studio, and seek his counsel. He believed in helping people whenever he could—no matter how busy he was—and was committed to what I call values that matter.

There are many stories—including those about his early work as a camp director and his later work as a school administrator supporting his teachers in and after the difficult “red-scare” McCarthy era in the 1950s—that I could tell. However, I would prefer to leave you with two examples of his wisdom, as reflected in conversations with my wife:

1) When she was a beginning teacher in New York, working in a very “difficult” section of the city, his advice to her was to remember that she could not move mountains but rather that she had to be content with moving molehills, and that to make a significant impact on one or two children each year would be a major accomplishment.

2) Another conversation revolved around reading. At one time, my wife was complaining about a book that she was reading; she didn’t like it but felt compelled to finish it. My father—who read everything and usually was immersed in two or three books at the same time—looked up and said, “Why should you finish it if it doesn’t “grab” you? There are millions of good books out there, and you should not waste time on something that doesn’t interest you!” My wife remembers and passes on these bits of wisdom—more than 50 years after these conversations.