Francis Criss | |
---|---|
Born | Francis Hyman Criss 1901 London, England |
Died | 1973 (aged 71–72) New York City, US |
Nationality | American |
Education | Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Art Students League of New York, Barnes Foundation |
Known for | Painting |
Movement | Precisionism |
Awards | Guggenheim Fellowship |
Francis Hyman Criss (1901 - 1973) was an American painter. Criss's style is associated with the American Precisionists like Charles Demuth and his friend Charles Sheeler.
"Francis Criss". John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. Retrieved 3 September 2021.</ref>
The work from his best-known years, the 1930s and 1940s, is characterized by imagery of the urban environment, such as elevated subway tracks, skyscrapers, streets, and bridges. Criss rendered these subjects with a streamlined, abstracted style, devoid of human figures, that led him to be associated with the Precisionism movement. With distorted perspectives and dream-like juxtapositions, as in Jefferson Market Courthouse (1935), these empty cityscapes also suggest the influence of Surrealism.[ citation needed]
A turn towards more commercial work later in his career—including a November 1942 cover for Fortune Magazine—led to a decline in his reputation.[ citation needed] Criss died in 1973 in New York City. [1]
His work is in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum, [2] the Detroit Institute of Arts, [3] the Philadelphia Museum of Art, [4] the Smithsonian American Art Museum, [1] and the Whitney Museum of American Art. [5]
In 2021 Criss' painting Alma Sewing was featured in an essay by the art critic Sebastian Smee in the Washington Post. Smee considers Alma Sewing to be Criss' finest work. [6] The painting in the collection of the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia. [7]
Francis Criss | |
---|---|
Born | Francis Hyman Criss 1901 London, England |
Died | 1973 (aged 71–72) New York City, US |
Nationality | American |
Education | Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Art Students League of New York, Barnes Foundation |
Known for | Painting |
Movement | Precisionism |
Awards | Guggenheim Fellowship |
Francis Hyman Criss (1901 - 1973) was an American painter. Criss's style is associated with the American Precisionists like Charles Demuth and his friend Charles Sheeler.
"Francis Criss". John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. Retrieved 3 September 2021.</ref>
The work from his best-known years, the 1930s and 1940s, is characterized by imagery of the urban environment, such as elevated subway tracks, skyscrapers, streets, and bridges. Criss rendered these subjects with a streamlined, abstracted style, devoid of human figures, that led him to be associated with the Precisionism movement. With distorted perspectives and dream-like juxtapositions, as in Jefferson Market Courthouse (1935), these empty cityscapes also suggest the influence of Surrealism.[ citation needed]
A turn towards more commercial work later in his career—including a November 1942 cover for Fortune Magazine—led to a decline in his reputation.[ citation needed] Criss died in 1973 in New York City. [1]
His work is in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum, [2] the Detroit Institute of Arts, [3] the Philadelphia Museum of Art, [4] the Smithsonian American Art Museum, [1] and the Whitney Museum of American Art. [5]
In 2021 Criss' painting Alma Sewing was featured in an essay by the art critic Sebastian Smee in the Washington Post. Smee considers Alma Sewing to be Criss' finest work. [6] The painting in the collection of the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia. [7]