Morris Behr Kirshenbaum, a leading figure in Pittsburgh's art community and founder and director of the Ivy School of Professional Art, died Monday, Nov. 17, 2003, at the Charles Morris Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Squirrel Hill.
Mr. Kirshenbaum, of Shadyside, died of complications from Alzheimer's disease. He was 85.
Until its closing in 1980, the school that Mr. Kirshenbaum and his wife, Joy Fox Kirshenbaum, started in 1961, still commonly known as "The Ivy School," nurtured a crop of famous artists, including pop artist Keith Haring, and fertilized the larger Pittsburgh art scene.
Mr. Kirshenbaum was an accomplished painter and illustrator in his own right and embraced artists of all stripes. He encouraged his students to live art and live on art.
"People were very committed to their art," said Ilene Winn-Lederer, an illustrator artist in Greenfield who taught there from 1972-75. "He gave us the opportunity for that to happen."
Born July 1, 1918, to Abraham and Anna Borg Kirshenbaum of the city's Hill District, Mr. Kirshenbaum was initiated into the art world by his father, a skilled metal craftsman for the Pennsylvania Railroad.
After receiving a bachelor's degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 1947, he studied throughout the city and on the East Coast. He also studied art at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere in Paris.
Mr. Kirshenbaum was an Army veteran and served in Europe in World War II. He was discharged as a sergeant in 1945.
Mr. Kirshenbaum got his first art job as a medical artist at the Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C.
He returned to Pittsburgh and served as director of the Modern School of Practical Nursing in Oakland. Mr. Kirshenbaum later established the Ivy School, a two-year trade school that trained artists on an array of subjects, including advertising art direction, illustration, filmmaking, photography, cartooning, interior design and fine arts.
As the art school's head, Mr. Kirshenbaum was at once demanding and accommodating, according to those who taught there.
"He was a tough boss to work for," said Philip Mendlow, 70, an Edgewood sculptor who worked several stints at the school, the last as academic dean in the late 1970s. "But I always admire the fact that he started (the school) for the community."
Winn-Lederer recalled asking for a skeleton after Mr. Kirshenbaum assigned her to teach an anatomy and figure drawing class. One day, a big box landed in the classroom. Winn-Lederer found a young girl's skeleton that Mr. Kirshenbaum brought from India.
Beyond the classroom, Mr. Kirshenbaum fostered an artists' commune on his farm in Armstrong County.
Besides his wife of 54 years, Mr. Kirshenbaum is survived by a son, Adam Kirshenbaum, of Pittsburgh; three daughters, Lyn Kirshenbaum, of Philadelphia; Susan Kirshenbaum, of San Francisco, and Ave Kirshenbaum Doppelt, of Winter Park, Fla.; and a brother, Bernard, of Pittsburgh.
Services will be held at 11 a.m. today at Ralph Schugar Funeral Chapel, 5509 Centre Ave., Shadyside, with interment at Shaare Torah Cemetery.
In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the Greater Pittsburgh Chapter of the Alzheimer's Association.
