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Billhead - 08/07/1882....Ballin Brothers...Mfg. Shirts & Drawers....12 & 14 Walker St., New York. Florence Ballin Cramer was born in Brooklyn on December 13, 1883. Her birth name was Florence Julia Ballin. Her parents were Jacob Ballin (1833-1887) and Adelaide Marx Ballin (1845-1922). Her father, who died when she was three, ran a successful manufacturing business. Born in Germany, he emigrated to New York and, aged 23 in 1856, began making and selling men's shirts in a business on Nassau Street in lower Manhattan.When his brother Moritz became his partner in 1877, the firm became known as Ballin Brothers and it survived under that name after Jacob's death and into the twentieth century. Florence Ballin Cramer (1877–1971) was an American modernist artist known for her landscapes, still lifes, portraits, and nudes, each tending to have what one close observer called "a clearly expressed a mood or attitude as well as presenting an easily recognizable subject". Describing a retrospective exhibition in 1957, a curator said her paintings were "characterized by a pervasive impressionism which ranges from color-wrought realism to gentle abstraction." Augmenting her career as professional artist, Cramer established and directed an art gallery on 57th Street in Manhattan that was devoted to showing works by young artists and for many years she ran a shop in Woodstock, New York that sold antiques and books. During the early part of her adult life, she divided her time between Manhattan and Woodstock and later lived year-round in Woodstock. After her death, a friend, author Frank Leon Smith, said she had found in Woodstock "just the right place and at precisely the right time for her gifts and talents."

Associated People/Businesses

• Ballin Brothers (Jacob & Moritz)

Geography

No geographic information available.

Subjects

No subjects available.

Physical Location

Arc.MS.56, Box 23, Folder 10