Eleven Fingers:
Works by Dick Lubinsky

In the Main Gallery
July 14, 2010 through December 31, 2010

Opening Reception July 30, 2010
from 7 – 9 pm

Richard Lubinsky was born in the Bronx in 1933. Early in his life, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. He was hospitalized off and on between 1951 and 1958 but managed to live a semi-normal, though Bohemian, life from 1958 on, mostly at his parents’ apartment on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx. He lived there alone and with his lifelong partner and muse, Judy Zitman, from 1985 until 2000. After his death from heart failure in April 2001, Dick Lubinsky’s niece June Kosloff discovered nearly 2,000 artworks. It is through her efforts that his works were first shown in 2004 and continue to be shown today. Kosloff notes, “I had known that Dick was an artist, but only after his death in 2001 did I discover the extent of his work as I made my way through a Bronx apartment piled high with junk, a storage unit in Mount Vernon, and three vehicles packed to capacity. The amount of work I found was staggering.”

Throughout his lifetime, Lubinsky created art in several mediums. He drew from life, and he took photographs which he copied in drawings and paintings. He also copied photographs and artworks from books, magazines, and record album covers. Like many artists suffering from mental illness, he used art as a means of engaging an often unfriendly world. French artist Jean Dubuffet, an early champion of visionary art, noted that the motivations for these artists are entirely different than for those with academic training and professional aspirations: "Those works created from solitude and from pure and authentic creative impulses—where the worries of competition, acclaim and social promotion do not interfere—are, because of these very facts, more precious than the productions of professionals."

Works are on loan courtesy of the Estate of Richard Lubinsky and Fountain Gallery, the premier venue in New York City representing artists with mental illness. Founded by Fountain House in 2000 as a not-for-profit exhibition space, the Gallery sells original artworks and collaborates with a wide network of artists, curators, and cultural institutions.

Fountain House began with the belief that people with mental illness are capable of helping each other.
In 1944, the group held its first meeting of WANA (We Are Not Alone) in Manhattan. Fountain House became incorporated four years later and developed into a multi-faceted organization with many different programs to serve those struggling with mental illness. Fountain House is a sister organization to Stairways Behavioral Health, a major provider of services to those with mental illness in the Erie community.