A recent exhibition focused on Abstract Figurative Expressionism from 1952 to the 1960s highlighted the work of Jay Milder, an American painter who is also considered a Brazilian citizen.
“Inventing Downtown,” exhibited by the renowned Grey Gallery at New York University in March, is a group exhibition created by curator and art historian Mellissa Rachleff, Ph.D., which brought together the work of over 45 artists from downtown New York in the 1950s, including Jay Milder.
Jay Milder (born in 1934) is a second-generation figurative expressionist painter of the New York School. He began studying painting at the Chicago Art Institute. In 1957, Milder and his family moved to Staten Island, New York, where his career took off. Jay Milder’s paintings have undergone various stylistic changes since the 1950s. However, the most common and important consistency has been his organic form of Expressionism. Biblical references have always played an important role in Milder’s work.
Jay Milder was appointed Cultural Ambassador between Brazil and the United States by Assis Chateaubriand, an art collector and newspaper owner in Rio de Janeiro. 
Milder had a four-month solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, Rio de Janeiro, in 2006. Dinah Guimaraens, Ph.D., was the curator and the liaison with the Guarani tribe, where Milder also received the honor of Honorary Chamam from Cacique Tobi, the high priest of the Guarani tribe, in Rio de Janeiro.
Milder’s paintings are well-known in art galleries and museums in the U.S. and Brazil, where he has had retrospective exhibitions in museums, starting with the National Museum of Fine Arts, Rio de Janeiro, 2000; Museum of Modern Art in Salvador, Bahia, 2003; and Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro, a two-month show extended by popular demand for another two months, 2006-2007; as well as at the Federal Museum of Brasilia, 2009. He was also invited in 2010 to exhibit at the main graffiti space in São Paulo and created an important graffiti mural with Kobra, considered the number one graffiti artist in Brazil. Milder was the first American painter to be invited to create a permanent graffiti mural in São Paulo, on its main avenue, Avenida Rebouças. He began working with spray paint in 1958 and also inspired Jean-Michel Basquiat, particularly with his use of graffiti symbols as a source of inspiration.
His next project is to create a mural here in New York City with Kobra.