Alfonso Ossorio

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Alfonso Ossorio

Alfonso Angel Ossorio (born August 2, 1916 in Manila , Philippines , † December 5, 1990 in East Hampton , New York , USA ) was an American painter of Filipino descent. He was one of the representatives of Abstract Expressionism , known for his assemblages .

life and work

Alfonso Ossorio was born in Manila to wealthy parents from the Negros Occidental province of the Philippines . Its roots were Spanish , Filipino and Chinese . From the age of eight to thirteen he attended school in England . In 1930 he moved to the United States. From 1934 to 1938, he studied art at Harvard University and then continued his studies at the Rhode Island School of Design . He received American citizenship in 1933 and served as a medical illustrator in the United States Army during World War II .

Ossorio's early works can be assigned to surrealism . He was an admirer and collector of Jackson Pollock's early paintings , was friends with him and his wife Lee Krasner , and promoted them both. In the early 1950s, Ossorio began painting on canvas with thick oil spreads and enamel paints.

In 1950, Ossorio traveled to Paris to meet Jean Dubuffet . Dubuffer's interest in Art brut opened up new perspectives for Ossorio to deal with the artistic potential of mentally ill and uneducated children without prejudice. On the advice of Pollock, Ossorio bought a large estate (240,000 m²), "The Creeks" in East Hampton , in 1951 and lived there for more than forty years. Among other things, he showed Dubuffet's Art Brut collection on the estate .

In the 1950s, Ossorio began to create works that were reminiscent of Dubuffer's assemblages . He used shells, bones, driftwood, nails, doll eyes, buttons, cubes, costume jewelry, shards of mirrors and children's toys that he mounted on the pictures. Ossorio called these assemblages parishes , with an obvious religious allusion.

In 1961 Ossorio stood next Dubuffet and nearly 140 other artists in the Museum of Modern Art in the exhibition The Art of Assemblage ( The Art of Assemblage ) from. In 1964 he participated in documenta III in Kassel in the painting department .

When Ossorio died in 1990, half of his ashes were scattered around his estate and the other half were buried nine years later in Green River Cemetery , along with many other famous artists, writers, and critics.

His works are in numerous public collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art , New York, the Harvard Art Museum in Massachusetts , the Honolulu Academy of Arts , the Housatonic Museum of Art in Bridgeport , Connecticut , and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gail Levin: Lee Krasner - A biography . Thames & Hudson, London 2019, ISBN 978-0-500-29528-1 , pp. 255 f .