• Refregier was raised in Moscow, Russia but by at age 15 he ventured to Paris where he served as an apprentice under a man named Vassilief. He was known as a “man of the Renaissance” and Refrieger considered him as the man who “conditioned [his] whole life”. He swept the floor, kept clay wet along with other tasks including “casting sections of the human body for Paris hospitals”.

(https://www.aaa.si.edu/download_pdf_transcript/ajax?record_id=edanmdm-AAADCD_oh_213745)

• In 1920 Refregier moved to New York and then attended the Rhode Island School of Design until 1925 when he obtained a job producing replicas of famous paintings for home decorators until 1927 when he ventured to Munich, Germany. He returned to New York where he resided at the Mount Airy artist’s colony on Croton-on-Hudson.

• During the Great Depression when times became tough and people needed work, the Federal Art Project provided work those that they couldn’t find themselves. At $23.86 a week he worked for the WPA under President Roosevelt and his first position with the WPA was creating murals at the Greenpoint Hospital in Brooklyn, New York and the Rincon Post Office in San Diego, CA. The mural he painted in San Francisco titled “The History of San Francisco” took from 1940-1948 to complete costing close to $30,000 and was deemed controversial because of the tragic historical events depicted within it.

• After showing in a wide variety of shows and exhibitions, he took a job at Bard College where he was a painting professor from 1962-1964.