Joseph Solman was, with Mark Rothko, the unofficial co-leader of The Ten, a group of expressionist painters who exhibited as the “Whitney Dissenters” in New York in 1938.In the late 30’s Solman moved from painting New York City street scenes and turned his direction and focus to his studio and the objects in it. Studio Interiors, 1945-51 by Stuart Preston“INTIMIST: There is no suspicion of a formula in Joseph Solman's poetic paintings of studio interiors at the A.C.A. Gallery. For this intimist, the working of reflected light playing over the disorder of a room is the main thing. But light is not merely used to illustrate each rickety chair or abandoned easel; it is principally a means of forcing the spectator to discover strange beauties in unpromising places. A justifiable comparison with the approach of Vuillard can be made here. Solman's interest in the bare bones of a design lead him to certain formal distortions, deliberate awkwardnesses of drawing whose purpose is to give the forms happier breathing space within the design. There are numerous such subtleties and they are matched by the beautiful nuances of pale color which establish the tone of a given canvas and which are occasionally set off by startling passages of bright color, like the scarlet book in Interior With Statue. And if the delight of fine observation dominates these paint-ings, there is also a note of strangeness in the absence of all figures when everything speaks of human presence.”The New York Times, 1952His work can be seen at The Whitney Museum, British Museum, Jewish Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden among others.