Paintings: 1940’s-50’s

From an early age, Irwin Touster loved looking at art. Growing up in New York City, he would often visit the city’s museums, most often the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he was inspired by paintings of the great masters. In the mid 1940’s he began painting seriously.

Although never religious, his earliest paintings were influenced by Christian art, and then by cubism. In 1947 he began a series of cubist-style paintings and drawings that had hints of illustration in them as well, and he was especially drawn to the work of Picasso and Matisse, whom he admired greatly.

Touster had a green thumb with regard to houseplants, and many that he grew became subjects in his early still lives. Later he progressed to landscapes, animals, and the nude figure. He also played the recorder, and In the late 1950's, he did a number of paintings and drawings of his family playing music together, doing dozens of paintings and drawings on the subject.

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