Adja Yunkers

View Adja Yunkers Gallery of Works

Adja Yunkers (Russian / American, 1900–1983) was born in Riga, Russia and spent his childhood in Petrograd. At the age of twelve, Yunkers was fascinated with Cubist and contemporary paintings that he had seen reproduced in art journals and books. As soon as he was able to enroll, Yunkers began classes at Art Academy of Petrograd.

After leaving Russia, he briefly lived in Berlin, Paris, Stockholm, and Cuba. One of his first major exhibitions was a solo show at the Maria Kunde Galerie in Hamburg in 1921. Yunkers studied printmaking in Germany with the German Expressionists after World War I, befriended Swedish Surrealists in Stockholm, and eventually settled in New York where he met renowned Abstract Expressionists. Yunkers later became recognized as an American Abstract Expressionist himself.

His color prints have a lyrical and experimental quality. Yunkers' works are represented in over 80 national and international art institutions. In 1967, the Brooklyn Museum held a retrospective of his prints. Adja Yunkers' work can be found in over 80 international institutions and collections.