By Sophia Chang
“He was a remarkable person,” said Mollie Goldstein, his wife of 59 years, in an interview at her home last week. “He was kind, gentle, generous. He was an extremely fine artist,” she said of her husband, who died June 19.Born in Holyoke, Mass., Goldstein began his career in the arts when he moved to New York to study at the Art Students League of New York in 1939. In 1942 he enlisted in the Army and served in the Pacific as a mapmaker during World War II. While stationed in the Philippines, Goldstein drew sketches and painted watercolors of the cities and people he saw during the war, and 300 of these works were donated to the Military Museum in Washington, D.C. in 1996.”The curator herself drove down from Washington to pick up the art,” Mollie Goldstein said.When Goldstein returned to the States, he re-entered the Art Students League under the G.I. Bill and finished his studies in 1949. The year after he was awarded a Guggenheim grant to work on the development of a new color system to make color etchings. The same year he and Mollie Goldstein moved to the Bayside house on 219th Street that would remain their home for the next 54 years.Goldstein later started the Graphic Arts department at Adelphi University in 1953 and was named a full professor of art in 1965, becoming a professor emeritus in 1983.”He was one of the most beloved of instructors at Adelphi,” Mollie Goldstein said, showing a President's Medallion the university had awarded him. “We would like to start a scholarship in his name in the Art Department at Adelphi.”Goldstein was also a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in England. He gave lectures in many of the Northeast's finest art institutions, including Cooper Union, the Art Alliance in Philadelphia and the Walter Vincent Smith Museum in Springfield, Mass.Known primarily for his print-making and etchings, Goldstein's work has been exhibited at the Smithsonian Institute, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Carnegie Institute and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and he staged one-man shows throughout the country.Museums and institutions all over the country have hosted collections of his work, including Pennsylvania State University, the Boston Public Library, Teachers College at Columbia University and Brooks Memorial Museum in Memphis, Tenn.Despite all the accolades Goldstein garnered for his work, his wife said he remained humble. “He was a very modest man,” Mollie Goldstein said. “He loved his work and enjoyed creating it.”Goldstein's funeral was held June 22 at Schwartz Brothers Memorial Chapel in Forest Hills, and he has a memorial on Long Island. He is survived by his wife.”He was the most wonderful husband,” Mollie Goldstein said. “I can't accept the fact that he isn't here anymore.”Reach reporter Sophia Chang by e-mail at news@timesledger.com, or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 146.
