Master Watercolors

William Crozier

“The Cutting, West Cork.”

Signed and dated 1989.

(56 x 78 cm)

This fantastic watercolour by William Crozier will be sold in auction on 24 September 2007 in Skibbereen, rightly known as the capital of West Cork.

Crozier’s paintings in oil and watercolour are recognisable for their energy vitality and colour. In his exhibition we can particularly enjoy the artist’s excellent graphic abilities in his beautiful works on paper.

William Crozier was born in Glasgow in 1930 and educated at the Glasgow School of Art. On graduating he moved to London where he established his reputation at the forefront of his contemporaries through solo exhibitions at the ICA, Serpentine, Scottish and other Galleries. From the mid-1950s onwards, Crozier spent long periods living in Dublin and France, followed by a period in southern Spain, which was to prove central to his development as an artist. In 1991 the Crawford Art Gallery Cork and the Royal Hibernian Academy curated a large retrospective of his work.

Taught at the Central School of Art and latterly at Winchester from where he retired as Head of Fine Art in 1987 to paint full-time. Vibrant colour, striking, sophisticatedly-simplified design characterise his landscape work. Some of his shows brought huge success in Ireland where he spend part of his time.

Crozier was affected by post-war existential philosophy, throughout his life has allied himself and his work consciously with European art and thought. Early in his career he developed a highly personalized vision of nature, which in the 1960s and 1970s incorporated skeletal figures, making 'art that is as a razor slash' which ran counter to the prevailing tastes in abstraction and Pop-art imagery of the time. Then, as now, his landscapes and still-lifes use sumptuous colour to engineer the emotional intensity of the paintings. He remains concerned with developing the language of figurative painting.

William Crozier (Hardcover)
by Katherine Crouan (Author)

“Crozier is a formidable colourist, and the critical texts are accompanied by extensive reproductions of the artist's work in colour. The book will be widely welcomed by collectors and devotees of the artist's work, students of modern art, and art lovers in general.”

“The certainty and confidence of William Crozier’s compositional sense sings out in an age of ambiguity. “

posted by P.S. @ 7:52 PM