97. Doris Yokelson

Doris Yokelson was born in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of a Jewish immigrant who had fled religious pogroms in Russia at the turn of the century.¹ As a young girl, she discovered the wonders of museums in New York City through free admission and admits she “lived” at the Museum of Modern Art, where she saw work by Josef Albers and Marcel Duchamp. Between 1947 and 1951, Yokelson attended Syracuse University where she majored in art and took coursework in lithography and intaglio. After graduation, she returned to New York City along with a few classmates—including friend and fellow Atelier 17 member Lois Hall DeLuca—to explore the arts scene.² By day, she worked at an advertising agency and eventually a direct mail company. By night, she did a lot of “hanging out” in Greenwich Village hot spots like the White Horse Tavern and Minetta Tavern. She became a member of Atelier 17, definitely by spring of 1952, if not sooner.³ By the summer of 1954, Yokelson had saved enough money to travel to Europe on a Liberty ship. She intended to stay a few months, but ended up staying four years, visiting Edinburgh, London, Florence, and finally Germany, where she worked in a pottery studio. Yokelson still has a studio and paints often.

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