The Rural We: Murray Zimiles
The painter has created a work he hopes to sell and donate the proceeds to organizations helping Ukrainians.
Self portrait
Millerton resident Murray Zimiles is a distinguished, collected and exhibited artist, professor and author who has created a painting in response to the war in Ukraine. He’s hoping to sell it and forward the proceeds to Ukraine via a select group of organizations. Zimiles’s work are included in the collections of some of the most prestigious museums and galleries, including the Museum of Modern Art (the one in New York City and the one in Haifa, Israel); Portland Art Museum and Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Florida Holocaust Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida. He was a professor at SUNY Purchase for nearly 40 years and continues to paint every day. His work is currently included in a group show in the Special Exhibititions Gallery at the Harvard Art Museum.
My wife, Martha Zimiles (an icon painter) and I have lived in Millerton since 1972. We bought an old, broken-down farmhouse, fixed it up and sold it, then built the house and studio we’re in now.
The subjects of my paintings are all over the map, whatever provokes me. What I see and what affects me emotionally is what I paint. My mother’s side of the family comes from Ukraine, and I have friends there, so I did a painting about the situation, mostly oil on canvas. I scoured the internet for photos of protesters against the war, then compiled, rearranged, and abstracted the images, setting them off against scenes of explosions and horror. The end result is a 60 by 40-inch image that is both horrible and beautiful. In architecture, there is an adage that form follows function. The way I paint, function follows form. The picture has to be enticing and in a sense, beautiful, to attract people to it. My Ukraine painting is provocative, but intriguing and captivating.
It took me about two-and-a-half weeks of working on it, five to six hours a day. If I sell it, the money will go to four organizations: Americares, Save the Children, the International Rescue Committee, and the World Central Kitchen. In 2008 I was guest curator at the American Folk Art Museum for a show, “Gilded Lions and Jeweled Horses: The Synagogue to the Carousel, Jewish Carving Traditions.” Research for that took me all over eastern Europe, so I know that area very well, and what’s happening in Ukraine hits me very emotionally. It helps my conscience that I’m doing something. I’ve also done a second Ukraine painting, but I’m not selling that one.
During this COVID period I wrote a memoir, Doctor, Lawyer, Engineer or Bum. (I’m the bum.) I’m 80 years old — figured I should tell all my crazy stories!
