Reuben Tam


Reuben Tam was a Hawaiian American landscape painter, educator, poet and graphic artist.

Early life and education

He was born in Kapa'a on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. He earned a BA degree from the University of Hawaiʻi in 1937. He attended classes in 1940 at the California School of Fine Art. In 1941 he moved to New York City and he continued his studies from 1942 until 1945 at Columbia University with Meyer Schapiro.

Career

Tam became affiliated with the Downtown Gallery in 1945. Tam is best known for his referential abstract landscape paintings showing both land and sea, such as From Cliffs to Evening. In his later career he worked more in pure abstraction.
From 1946 to the 1974, he taught at the Brooklyn Museum Art School. Some of his notable students from BMAS included Frances Kornbluth, Mel Tanner, Jean Arcoleo, Pat Adams, and Richard Mayhew. He spent many summers painting on Monhegan Island in Maine, starting around 1950. He later taught courses at Queens College and Oregon State University.

Death and legacy

Tam returned to Kauai in 1980, and died there on January 3, 1991, of lymphoma.
The Addison Gallery of American Art, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Butler Institute of American Art, the Corcoran Gallery, Des Moines Art Center, Farnsworth Art Museum, Fisher Gallery, the Hawaii State Art Museum, the Henry Art Gallery, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Honolulu Museum of Art, the Lowe Art Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, the National Academy of Design, the Newark Museum, Reading Public Museum, the San Diego Museum of Art, Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the University of Michigan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the National Gallery of Art are among the public collections holding works by Reuben Tam.

Awards and honors