Queens Tribune

Seymour Rosenthal, internationally renowned artist, passed away at his home in Electchester Housing Cooperative in Flushing on Dec. 13, 2007, at the age of 86.

Rosenthal was born on Aug. 14, 1921, in the Bronx. He was a completely self-taught natural artist. At the age of 5 he would draw cartoons and caricatures on the sidewalks of New York with chalk. During the depression he was given paper by the peddlers to create signs for them to display on their pushcarts. He graduated from Benjamin Franklin High School in 1939. He also received the St. Gaudens medal for art in the same year.

Rosenthal joined the Wholesale and Warehouse Workers Union, Local 65 in 1939. He always carried a notebook and pencil and made sketches of workers and street scenes. Because of Rosenthal’s talent, he was requested by the union leadership to make drawings for the Union Voice newspaper.

After serving in the army during World War II, Rosenthal received an honorable discharge. He later joined Local 1 of the Amalgamated Lithographers of America in 1946.
The Great Depression, the Nazi desecration, and injustice towards minorities and the disadvantaged influenced Rosenthal’s art. He is renowned for creating works in oil, egg tempera, watercolor, graphics and pen and ink drawings. In the 1950s Rosenthal aroused interest and praise from eminent leaders in the art world. They encouraged him to pursue his art professionally because he was “wasting his eyesight” on commercial Lithography.
A total of 42 of his lithographs are in the permanent collection of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. His works are also in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C., the Indianapolis museum of Art, the Suffolk Museum at Stony Brook, L.I, the Harry S. Truman Library, Independence, Mo., the Technion Building in Haifa, Israel, as well as universities, museums and private collections throughout the world.

Rosenthal is survived by his beloved bride Frances of 64 years, his daughter and son and four grandchildren.