About the artist:

Leo Rabkin studied art at New York University with Hale Woodruff and William Baziotes. His early work features dramatic torn and stitched canvas in the spirit of Abstract Expressionism. Leo had a second major in counseling and found a position as a special education teacher in a public school devoted to troubled adolescents. While other teachers found his students disruptive, Leo Rabkin encouraged their artistic instincts and also taught them typing, a useful focus for the mind and hands that offered eventual employment. He remained in that post for fifteen years balancing his art career, teaching and a passion for art collecting that he shared with his wife Dorothea.

Leo Rabkin’s career as an artist took off in the 1960s with the debut of his Lucite and plexiglass boxes. He showed at the Richard Feigen Gallery and the Howard Wise Gallery and was featured in the prestigious annuals at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Rabkin’s work entered many museum collections during this period. He also became president of the American Abstract Artists group and served on the Mayor’s Council on Art.