Morton Kaish is an American artist whose paintings, drawings and prints can be found in major museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Fitzwilliam Museum and the British Museum.
Kaish’s light and color-filled works have been exhibited nationally and internationally. Notable exhibitions include the Hollis Taggart Galleries and Staempfli Gallery in New York City, Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens, West Palm Beach, Florida, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio, and the American Cultural Centers in Jerusalem and Rome.
Critics have noted Kaish’s powerful ability to combine traditional and experimental painting techniques with contemporary insights, and reviews of his work can be found in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Christian Science Monitor and TIME, among many other publications.
Kaish is Professor Emeritus in the School of Art and Design at FIT/SUNY, and has served as Artist-in-Residence at Dartmouth College; the University of Washington, Seattle; Haifa University, Israel, as well as on the faculties of the New School, the National Academy and the Art Students League of New York.
He has been Visiting Artist at Boston University, Columbia University, Queens College, The Parsons School of Design, Philadelphia College of Art, The School of Visual Arts, Susquehanna University, Tyler School of Art, Rome and The Sedona Arts Center.
Born in Newark, grew up in Maplewood, New Jersey, Morton Kaish earned his BFA at Syracuse University where he was awarded the Hiram Gee Fellowship in Painting. He continued his studies at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris, the Istituto d’Arte, Florence, and the Accademia di Belle Arti, Rome.
Kaish has been honored with The Benjamin West Clinedinst Memorial Medal for exceptional artistic merit by the Artists’ Fellowship, awarded the Alumni Award for Achievement in the Arts by Syracuse University, and elected to the National Academy in 1988, he received their Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011.