HAILED BY HOPPER, RABINOVITZ RECALLED.

• Position: WHAT'S NEW? - Arthur D. Hittner's "At the Threshold of Brilliance: The Brief but Splendid Career of Harold J. Rabinovitz"

At the Threshold of Brilliance: The Brief but Splendid Career of Harold J. Rabinovitz is a biography and catalogue raisonne written and compiled by Arthur D. Hittner, an independent art historian, on the basis of eight years of research. Rabinovitz was an important New York artist of the late 1930s and early 1940s who met his death in World War II--as a Japanese prisoner of war--at the threshold of a budding art career. The book is published by The Rabinovitz Project, an endeavor spearheaded by the author to reintroduce Rabinovitz to art historians and aficionados--and to elicit interest in and support for a possible retrospective exhibition of his paintings, lithographs, and drawings.

A native of Springfield, Mass., Rabinovitz (1915-44) earned a fine arts degree from Yale University in 1935, then studied at the Art Students League in New York under Yasuo Kuniyoshi, rising quickly to prominence before his burgeoning career was cut short by his death. In the six years between his college graduation and enlistment in the Army, the award-winning artist exhibited at the nation's leading museums (including the...