Anton Refregier

Anton Refregier (1905-1979) was a muralist, a printmaker, sculptor, and set designer. Born in Moscow, Refregier moved to Paris as a teenager, and eventually emigrated to the United States in 1920. He enrolled in the Rhode Island School of Design on a scholarship, and also studied abroad with the sculptor Nicolai Vassilief in Paris in 1920 and with Hans Hofmann in Munich in 1927. He subsequently relocated to New York City. During the Great Depression, Refregier worked for the Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project. His most famous work was the WPA mural of the “History of San Francisco” at the Rincon Post Office in San Francisco, which featured controversial events from California history, such as anti-Chinese riots and the water front strike of 1934. The mural was placed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Refregier taught at Bard College, Annandale-on-the-Hudson, NY and the American Artists School, a progressive and socialist oriented school in New York City. His work is in the collections of the Smithsonian Museum of Americna Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, The San Francisco Museum of Fine Art, the British Museum, the National Gallery of Art, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the University of Artizona Museum of Art, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, and many others.