Background
He was born in Warsaw, Poland on August 29, 1900.
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Ben Solowey
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There he studied under Hugh Breckenridge and Daniel Garber at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, from which he graduated in 1923.
Career
In 1907, his family moved to Saint St. Petersburg, Russia, then, when he was fourteen, to Philadelphia. He then went to Paris, where he was influenced by Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. In 1925, he returned to Philadelphia, where he worked as a decorative painter.
Solowey moved to New York in 1928, where he was commissioned by the New York Times and the Herald Tribune to capture the likenesses of Broadway and Hollywood celebrities.
Of these, he sketched Ethel Barrymore, Fanny Brice, Claudette Colbert, Katharine Cornell, Marlene Dietrich, Helen Hayes, Katharine Hepburn, Walter Huston, George South. Kaufman, Mary Nash, Lily Pons, and Basil Rathbone. In 1936, the couple moved to a secluded farm in Buckinghamshire County, Pennsylvania.
There, Solowey would spend the rest of his days, restoring the ancient farmhouse and painting. His studio in Bedminster Township, Pennsylvania is maintained as a museum.
