Raphael Soyer was a Russian-born American artist known for his Social-Realist paintings of daily life in New York. His painterly yet detailed descriptions of people and places, make him among the most important American scene painters of his generation. “From all that I have seen, I am more than ever convinced that art must communicate, and it must represent, describe and express people, their lives and times.” Born on December 25, 1899 in Borisoglebsk, Russia, he largely was educated by his father, a Hebrew scholar. After his family immigrated to the Bronx in 1912 due to political turmoil in Czarist Russia, Soyer began his studies in art at Cooper Union, where he befriended the artist Chaim Gross. He went on to study under the painter Guy ...