William Crozier
Painter William Crozier is best known for his emotionally charged and vibrantly hued modernist landscapes and still lifes. Crozier’s Matisseinspired use of color as a means of producing form often presses on the boundaries of abstraction but figuration is always at the core of his work. The resulting effect is a deepened representation of nature that is simultaneously figural and fantastical.
Much of Crozier’s early career was spent in Paris and London, where he was steeped in the PostWar existentialism of both cities’ artistic and literary communities. His work during the 1960s and 1970s reflects these influences, most particularly his “skeleton paintings.” The “skeleton paintings” depict haunting, multichromatic figures suspended in the chaos of the landscape. These meditations on the Holocaust demonstrate the historical and emotional currents that charge his work. Crozier’s move to West Cork, Ireland in the 1980s was significant, and marks a distinct shift towards a more luminous landscape that is constructed with fervent and looser brushstrokes. This move also acknowledges the history inherent in his subjects and is typified by Depar ture from the Island, 1993. Chromatic and emotional intensity remained a hallmark of Crozier’s land and seascapes until his death in 2011. …
Painter William Crozier is best known for his emotionally charged and vibrantly hued modernist landscapes and still lifes. Crozier’s Matisseinspired use of color as a means of producing form often presses on the boundaries of abstraction but figuration is always at the core of his work. The resulting effect is a deepened representation of nature that is simultaneously figural and fantastical.
Much of Crozier’s early career was spent in Paris and London, where he was steeped in the PostWar existentialism of both cities’ artistic and literary communities. His work during the 1960s and 1970s reflects these influences, most particularly his “skeleton paintings.” The “skeleton paintings” depict haunting, multichromatic figures suspended in the chaos of the landscape. These meditations on the Holocaust demonstrate the historical and emotional currents that charge his work. Crozier’s move to West Cork, Ireland in the 1980s was significant, and marks a distinct shift towards a more luminous landscape that is constructed with fervent and looser brushstrokes. This move also acknowledges the history inherent in his subjects and is typified by Depar ture from the Island, 1993. Chromatic and emotional intensity remained a hallmark of Crozier’s land and seascapes until his death in 2011.
Crozier has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions across the United Kingdom and Europe, including shows at Arthur Tooth and Sons in London, the Gdansk National Museum, and the Royal Hibernian Academy. His work is in the permanent collections of the Tate Modern, the Victoria and Albert Museum, The European Commission in Brussels, and the Museum of Modern Art in Copenhagen. Crozier was the recipient of the Premio Lissone Milan Art Prize in 1958 and the Oireachtas Gold Medal for Painting in 1994.