Chaim & Dorothy Koppelman Foundation
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WORKS STATEMENT CURRICULUM VITAE BIOGRAPHY TRIBUTE BY D. KOPPELMAN ARTICLES
WORKS STATEMENT CURRICULUM VITAE BIOGRAPHY TERRAIN GALLERY ARTICLES
Chaim Koppelman Memorial Dorothy Koppelman Retrospective Chaim Koppelman Museo Napoleonico
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Chaim & Dorothy Koppelman Foundation
 
 

THE CHAIM AND DOROTHY KOPPELMAN FOUNDATION was established to exhibit and preserve the works of these two major 20th-century American artists. This website contains a selection of works by printmaker Chaim Koppelman (1920-2009) and painter Dorothy Koppelman (1920-2017). It presents, too, some of their powerful, profoundly thrilling writings on art, arising from their study of the philosophy Aesthetic Realism.

BEGINNING IN THE 1940s, Mr. and Mrs. Koppelman were students of the great American philosopher, poet, and critic Eli Siegel, founder of Aesthetic Realism. They tested scrupulously and valued passionately his landmark principle:

 

All beauty is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves.

 

IN 1955, Dorothy Koppelman, with Chaim Koppelman and other artists and writers, opened the Terrain Gallery in New York City. This groundbreaking gallery was and is based on the principle quoted above. And when the not-for-profit Aesthetic Realism Foundation began in 1973, the Terrain became part of it. It was the Koppelmans’ tremendous desire that Aesthetic Realism be known and studied by people everywhere. The non-profit Chaim and Dorothy Koppelman Foundation exists, as well, in behalf of that purpose.

 

Visitors Comments on the recent Dorothy Koppelman Exhibition at the Terrain Gallery in New York City —
"Love the depth of your paintings and quotes!" —NYC
"Beautiful and meaningful artwork."—Brazil
"A breathtaking gallery." —NYC
"Dorothy Koppelman's work is outstanding!" —Massachusetts
"Très intéressante exposition." —France
"What a beautiful philosophy." —Canada
"Wonderful gallery where beauty lives!" —Italy
“Intensely thought provoking” —California
"I'm so glad I came here."—New York City
“Que bonita la galeria!” —Madrid
“Wow, Wow, & Wow” —New Jersey

A STAMP, BIRD, AND THREE BULBS, oil on canvas, 1970, 42 x 53 in.

A selectiom of Dorothy & Chaim Koppelman's work is on view with three other artists at the Terrain Gallery's FIVE ARTISTS—& THE OPPOSITES. The painting to the left is accompanied by a thrilling quote from Eli Siegel's The Opposites Theory and comment by Marcia Rackow, both excerpted below:

“It has been felt for a long time that art, while having its structure, its accuracy and, at times, it's classicality, should also have something unlooked for, something askew, beautifully awry….The need for the surprising, the out-of-line, the irregular is is not a need, only, of an era or period. It is a need of the human mind, in any century or hour.” 

—Eli Siegel, from The Opposites Theory

“STRUCTURE & THE AWRY: This surprising array of familiar objects seems mischievously ‘out-of-line.’ Dorothy Koppelman shakes up our complacency….When was the last time we appreciated the beautiful round form of a light bulb, or the circularity of curtain rings, or saw their relation to a bird’s curved breast, or the graceful image of woman on a stamp? The artist does just that. She shows the ‘unlooked for’ in the ordinary, surprise in the familiar.”  –Marcia Rackow, Terrain Gallery coordinator

Here's an excerpt from the comment by Carrie Wilson on LIGHT AND DARK in Chaim Koppelman's stunning pastel currently in the Terrain Gallery exhibition, FIVE ARTISTS—& THE OPPOSITES—

“Through the artist’s consummate technique, the substance of every object, from pitcher to pomegranate, is revealed—almost sculpted—through subtle effects of light and shadow. . . .

As his student and colleague, I know Chaim Koppelman loved these words from Eli Siegel’s Is Beauty the Making One of Opposites?:

‘Does all art present the world as visible, luminous, going forth?—does art, too, present the world as dark, hidden, having a meaning which seems to be beyond ordinary perception?’ ”

—Carrie Wilson, Terrain Gallery coordinator

UNTITLED STILL LIFE, pastel , 20 1/4 X 25 3/4 in.