Jack Youngerman

Jack Youngerman was born in St. Louis, Missouri on March 25, 1926, and moved to Louisville, Kentucky in 1929. After studying at the University of Missouri, Columbia from 1944 to 1946 under a wartime navy training program, he graduated from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill in 1947. That same year, he returned to Missouri to complete his Bachelor’s degree in Journalism before moving to Paris on a G.I. scholarship, where he enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts to study drawing with Jean Souverbie.
In Paris, Youngerman became friends with fellow artists Ellsworth Kelly, Eduardo Paolozzi, and Cesar. He married Delphine Seyrig in 1950 and had his first group exhibition at Galerie Maeght that year. Visits to the studios of Constantin Brancusi and Jean Arp deeply influenced his work, particularly their organic forms. His first solo exhibition was held at Galerie Arnaud in Paris in 1951. Between 1954 and 1955, he explored the Middle East throughout Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Jordan, which further shaped his artistic vision.
In December 1956, encouraged by dealer Betty Parsons, Youngerman moved to New York and settled at Coenties Slip, Manhattan, near artists Robert Indiana, Jasper Johns, and Robert Rauschenberg. He debuted his first solo exhibition at Betty Parsons Gallery in 1958, followed by six more. His work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim, the Phillips Collection, and the Corcoran in Washington, D.C. Youngerman received the National Endowment for the Arts Award in 1972, 1984, and 1985, and the Guggenheim held a 40-year retrospective of his works in 1985. In 2006, he was awarded a Fellowship from the Barnett and Annalee Newman Foundation. Youngerman is represented by Park West Gallery.