"Girl with Perfume" 
Ink on Paper
1963
#D110 from the estate of Reuben Kramer

Kramer Biography
(1909-1999)
Medium/Discipline: Sculpture, Works on Paper
Birthplace: Baltimore, Maryland
Place of Death: Baltimore, Maryland
Maryland Affiliation: Born here, Active while in residence
Prominent Theme: Abstract; The Human Figure; Mythology; Non-Objective
Active Dates and Place: Baltimore, Maryland: 1924; Paris, France: 1931, 1933; Rome, Italy: 1933-36; London, England: 1936-38
Gender: Male
Race/Ethnicity: White
Biography: Born in Baltimore in 1909, Kramer recalls, "When I was a child in east Baltimore, I was always building things out of scraps - tin, leather, wood, et cetera - picked up from nearby factories." (Low, p. 12) In junior high, he developed a love for the medium of clay and began to dream of a life as an artist, due in part to frequent visits to Enoch Pratt Free Library, The Baltimore Museum of Art and the Walters Art Museum, where he was impressed by Rodin's Thinker. At the age of fifteen, Kramer was offered an evening-school scholarship from Augustine J. Ryan, Vice-President of the Maryland Institute College of Art Board of Trustees. He eventually attended MICA's Rinehart School of Sculpture as a full-time student and received two traveling scholarships which he took to Paris where he admired the work of the sculptor Emile-Antoine Bourdelle (1861-1929), as well as to Genoa, Florence, Germany, Holland and Belgium. A 1934 graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art, 24-year old Reuben Kramer was awarded the prestigious Prix de Rome for Dying Centaur, a huge clay rendition of a popular mythological subject, that same year. He then spent two years in Rome, immersed in the study and plaster-casting of Greek sculpture. In Rome, he discovered his unique vision of working in the medium of bronze in creating abstract human forms, even though he did not begin to focus on this approach until the late 1930s after a number of years in London working in a style similar in its abstraction to Brancusi. Kramer has said, "The human figure is my religion." (Low, p. 38) Kramer described his appreciation for clay and bronze as follows: "I always work swiftly when composing or constructing a new composition and clay is the only medium which allows the freshness that I seek Bronze, on the other hand, makes permanent my thinking and working in clay." (Low, p. 18)

In 1939 after a return to Baltimore, he had his first of many one-person exhibitions at the Baltimore Museum of Art and continued to show his work extensively during his seventy-year career. A resident of Baltimore throughout his life, Kramer was deeply committed to promoting civil rights. In 1944, he co-founded and became Director of the Baltimore Art Center, the first racially integrated art school registered in Maryland; he remained director through 1956. Over the course of his life, Kramer also taught art at American University, Maryland Institute College of Art and the Jewish Community Center in Baltimore.

Kramer's work in Baltimore includes several public art pieces, including a clay relief sculpture for the the city's first public housing project, Frederick Douglass Homes, as well as a portrait of Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, which stands in downtown Baltimore at the Garmatz Federal Courthouse on West Pratt Street. He was also commissioned to execute a woodcarving relief sculpture for a U.S. Post Office in St. Albans, West Virginia. Reuben Kramer left behind him a large body of work, including Sam the Fish, which is displayed in the Children's Room at the Enoch Pratt Free Library. Also, the Reuben Kramer Archives are held by the Enoch Pratt Free Library.
Education/Training: City College (a high school in Baltimore, Maryland), 1925; Maryland Institute College of Art, 1925-31; L'Académie de la Grande-Chaumière (Paris, France), 1933; Received F.A.A.R. degree from American Academy in Rome, 1936
Taught By: Walter R. Gale at City College; J. Maxwell Miller and Isabelle Shulz at MICA
Art-related Employment: art instructor; art center director; draughtsman; sculptor
Selected References: Fritsch, J.R. "Art.Link.Letter," Link, (Issue 4: Displacement), Spring 1999. www.baltolink.org/issues/issue4/letter.html.
Low, Theodore L. Art of Reuben Kramer, (Baltimore: The Walters Art Gallery and The Rinehart School of Sculpture of The Peabody Institute and The Maryland Institute), 1963.
Maryland Institutions Holding Artworks: Baltimore Museum of Art; Mary Owings Miller Collection, Special Collections, Langsdale Library, University of Baltimore; Walters Art Museum
Maryland Institutions Holding Autobiographical Resources, Archives, Personal Papers, Ephemera, or Other Primary Source Material: Enoch Pratt Free Library
Single-Artist Exhibitions: American University, 1953; Baltimore Museum of Art, 1939, 1959; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959; Maryland Institute College of Art, 1937; Washington County Museum of Fine Arts, Hagerstown, Maryland, 1955
Multiple-Artist Exhibitions: International Sculpture Show, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, 1940; Exhibited in shows at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 1949-53, 1958-60; Joint Husband-Wife Exhibition, Western Maryland College, Westminster, Maryland, 1954; In Three-Man Show, Jewish Community Center, Baltimore, 1961
Awards: Consecutive scholarships, Rinehart School of Sculpture, Maryland Institute 1928-34
Rinehart Traveling Scholarship, 1931, 1933
Honorable Mention, Prix de Rome Competition, 1933
Prix de Rome, 1934
The Wilson-Levering Smith Medal for best work regardless of medium and the Three Arts Prize, All-Maryland Show, Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, 1940
First Prize in Frederick Douglass Homes Competition sponsored by The Baltimore Museum of Art, 1940
Selected as leading sculptor during "National Art Week" and received IBM Purchase Prize, 1941
First Prize for Sculpture, All-Maryland Show, Baltimore Museum of Art, 1946
First Prize, Sculptors Guild of Maryland Show, Baltimore Museum of Art, 1947
Grand Prize for best work regardless of medium, and Purchase Prize, All-Maryland Show, Baltimore Museum of Art, 1948
Anonymous award for work in any medium showing original expression in a modern direction, All-Maryland Show, Baltimore Museum of Art, 1949
The Artists' Prize for best work regardless of medium, All-Maryland Show, Baltimore Museum of Art, 1952
First Prize, Washington Sculptors Group Second Regional Exhibition, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, 1952
Purchase Prize, Corcoran Area Exhibition, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 1952
The Artists' Prize for best work regardless of medium, First Regional Artists Exhibition, Baltimore Museum of Art, 1953
Hutzler Award for Sculpture, All-Maryland Show, Baltimore Museum of Art, 1954
First Prize, Washington Sculptors Group Fourth Biennial of Contemporary Sculpture Exhibition, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, 1954
Prize for Drawing, Life in Baltimore Show, Peale Museum, Baltimore, 1954
Prize for Sculpture, Corcoran Area Exhibition, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 1957
Elected to Baltimore City College Hall of Fame, 1962