American Art Collaborative

Emil Armin showed a talent for art as a child in Austria. His parents died when he was ten, and Armin was forced to work odd jobs to support the family. He waited tables and sketched in his spare time until a brother encouraged Armin to join him in Chicago. Armin enrolled in courses at the Art Institute, where George Bellows and Randall Davey encouraged him to paint spontaneously and expressively. By the early 1920s, he was a star on the Chicago art scene, participating in various exhibitions and progressive art organizations and working with the Jewish Board of Education to teach art in the schools. (McKenna, Emil Armin, 1883-1971, 1980