Jack Roth (1927-2004)

There has often been a divide between the disciplines of art and science and though the battle lines are deep there are few who possess the skill to not only cross the line but to excel in both as well. No truer words could be spoken for the Abstract Expressionist painter, poet, photographer and mathematician, Jack Roth - a man who was represented by Knoedler & Co., one of the most renowned galleries at that time, and who taught at prominent universities.

Born in Brockway, Pennsylvania in 1927 Jack Roth enrolled at Pennsylvania State University in 1943, but his tenure there was interrupted by his service in World War II. Enrolling at the California School of Fine Arts, he studied painting under Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, Richard Diebenkorn, and Elmer Bischoff.

In 1954 he unsuccessfully applied for the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in the field of photography. In the same year, his work was exhibited in the Younger American Painters show at the Guggenheim Museum of Art, alongside Jackson Pollack, William de Kooning, and Robert Motherwell — one of the first major debuts of the Abstract Expressionist movement to be shown at an American museum.