Simon Dinnerstein

Early life

Dinnerstein was born in Brownsville, Brooklyn, New York in 1943 to pharmacist Louis and homemaker Sarah Dinnerstein. One of two children, his older brother Harvey Dinnerstein is also an artist.

Education and career

Dinnerstein holds a Bachelor of Arts in History from the City College of New York. He studied painting and drawing at the Brooklyn Museum Art School with Louis Grebenak, David Levine, and Richard Mayhew. He was a member of the faculty at the New School for Social Research, Parsons School of Design, and New York City Technical College. He lectures widely and has lectured at Pennsylvania State University.

Style and influences

Dinnerstein’s art is mostly in the figurative style, with folk, expressionistic, and surrealistic influences, possessing a “narrative” and “psychological edge”. He uses a variety of media, pencils, charcoal, and oil paints. Dinnerstein renders still-life's, but most of his work involves portraiture or human figures. He often “paints the figure in unexpected juxtaposition with landscape or interior elements,” of which Dinnerstein says,

What interests me is the ability of Degas, Balthus, Lucien Freud and Antonio Lopez Garcia…to deal with the figure…to create art…rich in scale, yet abstract adventurous, experimental…deeply human…a combination of modernism and tradition of skill medium and…a fresh, personal response to the human form in art…Hopefully my work speaks to these issues.

Often the human figures are portrayed against a background of hyperreality, or in dreamy surreal landscapes. Light plays an important role in Dinnerstein’s work achieving “an inwardness…in the play of light that radiates from the object and renders it mysterious.” or makes “Brooklyn sunlight on an ordinary floor seem supernatural.” The use of light contributes to Dinnerstein’s paintings being described as “magical realism”. In early Dinnerstein works, strong left-right symmetry prevails, although later works are noted for their asymmetry. Dinnerstein draws on diverse sources for inspiration: Northern European art (Albrecht Dürer, Hieronymus Bosch), Mexican art (Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera), as well as literature (D. H. Lawrence, August Strindberg), and film (Ingmar Bergman, Alfred Hitchcock).

The Fulbright Triptych

Dinnerstein’s most notable painting, The Fulbright Triptych, was started in Germany in 1971 while he served as a Fulbright Scholar in Graphics. It was completed in 1974. A largely autobiographical work, it combines stark realism with American figurative tradition to produce a secular rendering of the usually religious form, the triptych.

Writer Jonathan Lethem commented: “Simon Dinnerstein’s ‘The Fulbright Triptych’ is one of those singular and astonishing works of art which seem to imply a description of the whole world merely by insisting on a scrupulous gaze at one perfect instant." The oil-on-wood painting consists of three panels approximately 14 feet wide, depicting a graphic artist’s studio. Three figures, representing the Dinnerstein family, occupy the outer panels. The central panel consists of the artist’s desk, engraving tools, a copper disk of the commissioned Fulbright engraving project, and an outward view in perspective of Hessisch Lichtenau (near to Kassel). Plants, photographs, old master's paintings, children’s grade school writing, and an exit visa from Russia, appear tacked to the wall of the studio. The “Triptych” is noted for its symmetry, meticulous detail, mixture of textures, and sense of space.

Widely praised, with each viewer bringing a different sensibility and interpretation of the work, the painting is the subject of numerous essays, articles, and books, including “The Suspension of Time: Reflections of Simon Dinnerstein’s The Fulbright Triptych” edited by Daniel Slager, published 2011. Among the many who have commented on the painting are art critic John Russell, Guggenheim Foundation director Thomas M. Messer, art historian Albert Boime, artist George Tooker, writer Anthony Doerr, composer George Crumb, poet Dan Beachy-Quick, actor John Turturro, and Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri.

Personal life

In 1965, Dinnerstein married Renée Sudler, a noted educational consultant. Renée Dinnerstein is the author of the book "Choice Time: How to Deepen Learning Through Inquiry and Play, PreK-2" published in August 2016. She runs the popular blog, Investigating Choice Time: Inquiry, Exploration and Play. They have a daughter, Simone Dinnerstein, the virtuoso concert pianist. Both wife and daughter (as an infant) figure prominently in “The Fulbright Triptych” as well as other works.

Dinnerstein resides in Brooklyn, where, in addition to practicing his art, he teaches classes on art history and appreciation.

Videos and podcasts

List of awards

Exhibitions

Articles and reviews

The Fulbright Triptych articles and reviews

Books