Adolf Konrad (1915 - 2003 )

One of the leading New Jersey painters of his day, Adolf Konrad was born in Bremen, Germany in the year 1915. Growing up in Bremen, an area known for great trading and culture, he acquired an early love for the world of art. After moving to the United States, he studied at the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Art and the Cummington School in Massachusetts.(1)

Considered an American realist or an "American scene painter," Konrad created many oil paintings. He also taught for a time at Newark State College. Until his death in 2003, Konrad lived in rural Asbury, New Jersey in Warren County, with his wife Adair, also a painter.

(1) AskArt.com (see link below).

Birds

Birds, 1987. Photograph courtesy Pedersen Gallery, Lambertville (609/397-1332).

The Artist's Garden, Asbury. Photograph courtesy Pedersen Gallery, Lambertville (609/397-1332).

Beach Scene, watercolor, 1946, private collection. Used with permission.

Konrad has been known primarily for cityscapes and landscapes. The beach scene above was a gift from the artist to a friend who helped him during the Depression. Around 1938 Konrad rented a room from Goldie and Victor Sloan, a couple who operated a small grocery store in Newark. He later gave Mrs. Sloan this watercolor in thanks for the many times she fed him during that difficult era.

"Reflections," one of Konrad's best known paintings, was created in 1960. Owned by the Newark Museum, it is an oil painting on canvas and measures 33 by 46 inches. "Reflections" depicts the front window of an old music store, perhaps on a main street in Newark.(1)

According to Harry Naar, professor of fine arts and director of Rider University's art gallery, "Adolf Konrad's perceptions and observations are multifaceted and his pictorial images reflect a wide range of feelings and ideas. Within Konrad's work, the ordinary becomes the extraordinary."(2)

Konrad's paintings are owned by numerous corporations and museums, including the New Jersey State Museum in Trenton, the National Academy of Design in New York, AT&T in Bedminster, and the Forbes Collection in New York.

(1) Fearn C. Thurlow, American Art in the Newark Museum: Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture (Newark, NJ: The Museum, 1981).

(2) Harry Naar, Rider University, quoted on p4a website (see link below). See also Rider.edu link below).

Additional information courtesy Richard Sloan.