(b Hamburg, 11 Nov. 1901; d New York, 16 Apr. 1978). German-born painter who became an American citizen in 1948. He fled from the Nazi regime in 1933 and settled in Paris, then moved to the USA in 1941. At first he worked as a magazine and book illustrator (in Germany he had been art director of a publishing firm), and he did not begin to paint seriously until the early 1950s. His most characteristic works take their imagery from New York life, often with overtly erotic symbolism, and are painted with harsh colours and hard outlines. The effects he created owed something to Expressionist exaggeration, Surrealist fantasy, and Cubist manipulations of form, but his style is vivid and distinctive and anticipates aspects of Pop art.