Collection: Jack Perlmutter

Jack Perlmutter (1920–2006) was a highly influential, self-taught Washington D.C. painter and master printmaker, known for his dynamic "abstract realist" style that captured the energetic movement of urban life. Moving to D.C. around age twenty, he developed his expertise in lithography while working for the Navy's Hydrographic Office, a skill that later led to a Fulbright Research Professorship in printmaking at Tokyo University of the Arts. Perlmutter was a central figure in the local art community, serving as Professor and Chairman of the Printmaking Department at the Corcoran Gallery of Art from 1960 to 1982. His bold, colorful, and semi-abstract works, which frequently depicted recognizable city scenes overlaid with busy linear forms, were widely celebrated and are held in dozens of major collections, including the National Gallery of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. His career also included commissions from NASA to portray Apollo and space shuttle missions, cementing his legacy as one of D.C.'s best-known artists from the mid-20th century'.