LARGE ATMOSPHERIC OIL ON CANVAS OF FIVE FEMALES BY MARTIN FRIEDMAN (1950s?)

Expressionistic oil on canvas by the Hungarian-American painter Martin Friedman (1896-1981). This vibrant work presents five upright female figures—three in profile—rendered in a lyrical, neo-Fauvist palette. They emerge from a featureless background into an atmosphere that may evoke, for some viewers, the Hindu festival of Holi. The work is signed at the bottom left and probably dates from the 1950s. MARTIN FRIEDMAN (1896-1981) was born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1896. His family immigrated to the US when he was nine years old in hopes of improving their financial circumstances. As members of the working class, they were subject to inspection at Ellis Island. (Mass immigration via the “Gateway to the New World” would peak in 1907, a year after the Friedmans' passage, at 1,004,756 arrivals.) In an interview with historian Dorothy Seckler (1910-1994) for the Smithsonian Institution’s Archive of American Art, Friedman recalls the family settling outside of Yonkers, where he was the only “f