Abe Ajay (1919-1988) is known for his sculptural reliefs made of found objects that challenged the boundaries of mid-century modernism. Born in Altoona, Pennsylvania, Ajay studied at the Art Students League in New York. From 1969 to 1970, he was a visiting artist at the University of Minnesota at Duluth and from 1973 was a professor of art at State University of New York at Purchase. In his work, Ajay employed various tenets of the Hard-Edge, Assemblage, and Ready-made artistic movements, resulting in a precise, clean-cut and intricate art form resembling that of both sculpture and painting. Within his artwork resonates temperaments of vitality, invention, harmony, rhythm and balance.

Ajay's work remains in the permanent collections of the Guggenheim, Smithsonian, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the Neuberger Museum of Art. His work was also included in the private collections of J. Walter Thompson Company, the U.S. Steel Corporation, and Bank of America.