Bernard Karfiol was born on May 6, 1886 near Budapest, Hungary, the son of Benzion Karfiol, a recently naturalized American citizen of Austrian extraction, and Kate Goldstein Karfiol, of Hungarian ancestry. He was raised in Brooklyn, New York, where his father, an engraver and inventor, owned and operated the Royal Lace Paper Works.
In 1900 Karfiol began attending classes at Pratt Institute and upon submitting drawings at the National Academy of Design was permitted to study there. In 1901, at fifteen, he went alone to Paris, enrolling at the Académie Julien under Jean Paul Laurens.
Karfiol started his art career in Paris, France. Two of his paintings were accepted at the Grand Salon of 1904, where he was the youngest exhibitor, and others at the Salon d'Automne of 1905. The sale of a canvas enabled him to visit Italy, Britain, the Netherlands, and Poland. In Paris Karfiol was in touch with the progressive developments and personalities of the art world at a crucial time in the evolution of modern painting. He frequented Gertrude Stein's salon, where he met many artists, including Picasso and Matisse.
In 1906 Karfiol returned to the United States. Since recognition as a painter came slowly to Karfiol, he supported his family by teaching at his former academy and in 1913 was invited to hold classes at the Eighth Street studio of the sculptor Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. Drawings and a portrait of his son that he entered in the momentous Armory Show of that year interested Hamilton Easter Field, who in 1917 at his Ardsley Studios provided Karfiol (jointly with John Marin) with his first comprehensive exhibition. Throughout the ensuing decade Karfiol's works were frequently displayed in major shows. The New York dealer Joseph Brummer broke a precedent of his gallery, which had not shown American artists, by having one-man Karfiol exhibits in 1923, 1925, and 1927.
Up to that time Karfiol was painting in a manner that was rooted in his Parisian experience. His work was sensitive and poetic. His spare figures were reminiscent of the early Picasso, while his landscapes descended from Cézanne. Most appealing were his poignant renderings of adolescent youngsters, often his own children--for example, Boy Bathers (1916; Whitney Museum of American Art), In Our Shack (1923; Phillips Collection), and Boy (1924; Phillips Collection). Connoisseurs also began to discover his fine drawings and watercolors. Although he resided in New York, Karfiol worked mainly in Ridgefield, New Jersey, and during summers at Ogunquit, Maine, where many of his landscapes were painted.
In a change of style effected during the late 1920's, Karfiol turned from lean forms to the well-rounded figures characteristic of his maturity. This transition is best seen in an extended series of female nudes that, Renoir-like, are beautifully pigmented and heightened in color. During this period his landscapes also changed, becoming bolder and less realistic. Critical acclaim mounted, and the acquisition of his work, especially his new figure pieces, became almost mandatory for important public collections. Some representative canvases are Seated Nude (1929; Museum of Modern Art), Hilda (1929; Whitney Museum), Babette (1931; Detroit Institute of Arts), and Christina (1936; Carnegie Institute). In the 1940's, while continuing figure painting, Karfiol became increasingly preoccupied with landscape.
Among his contemporaries Karfiol was regarded as a solitary worker and a "pure" artist who was unmercenary and relatively indifferent to success. But an indication of his substantial recognition, at its peak in the 1930's, was the reproduction of three of his paintings--more than any other artist--in Forbes Watson's assessment of the initial show of contemporary Americans at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. If Karfiol's powers ultimately suffered some decline, the enduring appeal and real distinction of his best work throughout the quarter-century following the Armory Show are sufficient to assure him of a permanent place in the annals of American art.
Karfiol was best-known for figure-nude, landscape, and portrait painting. He was considered one of the earliest exponents of the modernist movement. Many of his scenes were inspired by the landscape of Maine. His works were widely exhibited and received a number of awards, including the $2, 000 William A. Clark Prize and Gold Medal of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (1928).
In 1906 Karfiol married Marguerite Reuwée, an American who had also attended the National Academy of Design. They had two children.
