NEW YORK, NY.- The Art Students League of New York is hosting a new exhibition, Anna Walinska and Her Circle from February 18 through May 24, at 215 W 57th St Suite 1 (Lobby Gallery) in New York City. Organized by Assistant Curator, Esther V. Moerdler, this exhibition highlights the exceptional breadth of Walinska’s work, spanning drawing, collage, painting, and a wide range of stylistic approaches from portraiture to abstraction. Presented alongside Walinska’s art are works by Art Students League artists who influenced her and were influenced by her, including Milton Avery, Chaim Gross, Louise Nevelson, and Raphael Soyer, as well as works by instructors Frank Vincent DuMondand Raymond Neilson.
Walinska’s niece Rosina Rubin (archivist, curator, and standard bearer of Walinska's estate), shares “I’m excited to see Anna Walinska returning to the Art Students League where her life as an artist began in 1918 at the age of 12. It’s also wonderful to see her work hanging beside works by her friends, colleagues and teachers.”
Anna Walinska was a pioneering painter, gallerist, and teacher whose contributions shaped the cultural life of twentieth-century New York. Born in London in 1906 to Ossip Walinsky, a labor organizer, and Rosa Newman, a sculptor and poet, Walinska was raised immersed in progressive political and artistic circles. In 1914, her family relocated to Brooklyn, where their home became a gathering place for Russian intellectuals, artists, and activists. In 1918, Walinska enrolled in the Art Students League, beginning a longtime relationship with the institution. She studied intermittently for many years, focusing on still life and portraiture and forming enduring friendships, most notably with fellow student Louise Nevelson.
“The League is honored to present this exhibition celebrating the extraordinary artistic trajectory and enduring impact of Anna Walinska,” says Moerdler. “Her work speaks to the lifelong journey of an artist committed to growth, experimentation, and self-discovery. It has been a privilege to tell her story and to reunite Walinska with the Art Students League artists who shaped—and were shaped by—her creative community. We hope this exhibition invites audiences to engage deeply with her legacy and to find inspiration in her fearless pursuit of artistic expression.”
The exhibit runs through May 2026 and is also available via Bloomberg Connects.
The Art Students League of New York was founded in 1875 by a group of art students who had the revolutionary idea that a fine art education should be accessible to all. In the nearly one hundred and fifty years since, the League has built a legacy as a school where a diverse community of artists are inspired to produce work that reflects their full potential. Hundreds of history-making artists studied or taught at the League, including Pacita Abad, Romare Bearden, Louise Bourgeois, Lee Bontecou, Eva Hesse, Hans Hofmann, Al Hirschfeld, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Yayoi Kusama, Norman Lewis, Roy Lichtenstein, Adrian Piper, Jackson Pollock, Mavis Pusey, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, Norman Rockwell, Mark Rothko, David Smith, Georgia O’Keeffe, Barnett Newman, Louise Nevelson, and Charles White, and more. @ASLNYC #ASLNYC
Walinska spent the 1920s in Paris, where she lived around the corner from Gertrude Stein. She studied at the Grande Chaumiere with Andre L’Hote. While there she exhibited at the Salon des Independents and befriended music composers Francis Poulenc and Arnold Schoenberg.
By the 1930s, Walinska had established herself as a central figure in New York’s art world. In 1935, she founded the Guild Art Gallery on West 57th Street, envisioning it as a space to “show artists of genuine merit, whether known or unknown, totally independent of commercial consideration.” The gallery exhibited significant figures including Chaim Gross, Raphael Soyer, and Arshile Gorky, and played a vital role in fostering avant-garde artistic exchange. In 1939, Walinska was appointed Assistant Creative Director for the New York World’s Fair, a position that recognized her leadership and vision even as she continued to develop a daring and experimental painting practice.
During the 1950s, Walinska traveled extensively, including an extended stay in Burma, expanding her artistic perspective and solidifying her reputation as a gifted portraitist. Though often skeptical of the commercial art market, her work remained in demand. She exhibited widely throughout the following decades and, in 1957, was honored with a retrospective at the Jewish Museum. Walinska only married briefly and never had any children, choosing to devote her life to art, music, dance and theater; forging meaningful relationships with nieces and nephews; and seeing more of the world than many of us will today, in a digital age that has made travel exponentially more accessible. Rather than fearing the unknown, Walinska jumped in head first, seeking to learn, experience, and grow through all of her endeavors.
Walinka’s work is also currently on display at the Hudson River Museum (Yonkers), the Baltimore Museum of Art, and the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts (Little Rock). It is housed in the collections of renowned institutions including the Denver Art Museum; Yad Vashem, Jerusalem; The Jewish Museum, New York; Tel Aviv Museum of Art; National Museum of American Art, Washington, DC; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC; Phillips Collection, Washington, DC; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC; the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University; the Eskenazi Museum at Indiana University; and the High Museum of Art, Atlanta. In addition to these collections,Walinska’s travel diaries and other historical papers are housed at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art.
