Joseph Margulies

American 1896 - 1984

Joseph Margulies moved as a young boy from his native Austria to New York City, where he spent most of his childhood. There, he worked occasionally at his parents’ East Side grocery store, performed and made music with his three brothers, and developed his artistic talent. For his informal artistic training, Margulies sketched his rabbis, requesting to be transferred to new teachers once he had memorized the wise faces and flowing beards of subsequent ones. After realizing he could use his artistic talent to construct for himself a career as an artist, Margulies attended classes at the National Academy of Design during the day and Cooper Union in the evening. He also studied at the Art Students League under Joseph Pennell, an image of whom he later captured in a lithograph. The young artist was rewarded for his artistic accomplishments in 1920 with the Tiffany Foundation Scholarship, which allowed him to reside and work at the idyllic Long Island estate of Louis Comfort Tiffany.
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