William Crozier
Death's Way II, 1969
Oil on canvas
122 x 122 cm
48 1/8 x 48 1/8 in
48 1/8 x 48 1/8 in
Copyright The Artist
William Crozier was educated at the Glasgow School of Art (1949-53). On graduating he spent time in Paris and Dublin before settling in London, where he quickly gained great notoriety...
William Crozier was educated at the Glasgow School of Art (1949-53). On graduating he spent time in Paris and Dublin before settling in London, where he quickly gained great notoriety for his work. By 1961 William Crozier was widely seen as one of the most exciting artists in London. Soho was his habitual haunt with fellow raconteurs William Irvine, Robert MacBryde, Robert Colquhoun, and intermittent comrades Francis Bacon, William Turnbull, and Eduardo Paolozzi. His first solo exhibition was in 1960 at the Drian Gallery, followed by another in 1961, and then three shows in consecutive years from 1962 at Arthur Tooth & Sons. In 1964 the Arts Council included his paintings in the exhibition Six Young Painters with David Hockney, Peter Blake, Allen Jones, Bridget Riley and Euan Uglow. In 1975 Crozier was grouped alongside Francis Bacon in the important exhibition Body and Soul at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool.
Based between London and Essex throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Crozier focused on the landscape, which became the source of visceral paintings, full of primitive energy. In the early 1960s the human figure entered Crozier's imagey, interred in the blasted landscape or seen as flayed, skeletal and screaming. A visit to the notorious Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in the 1960s left an indelible mark. From the 1980s, Crozier split his time betwen West Cork and London, and his depiction of the landscape blossomed with an extraordinary radiance. Crozier died in 2011. His work is held in the collections of the Tate, the Imperial War Museum, Ireland's Great Hunger Museum, Conneticut, and the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin. A major retrospective opens at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, in autumn 2017.
Profoundly affected by post-war existential philosophy, Crozier allied himself and his work consciously with contemporary European art throughout the 1950s and 1960s, towards European painters such as Dubuffet, Soulanges, Hartung and de Stael, rather than with the New York abstractionists. Crozier spent 1963 in southern Spain with the Irish poet Anthony Cronin; a stay that would prove pivotal to Crozier’s development as an artist for both the landscape and the culture. Crozier became fascinated by Spanish religious festivals such as 'Semana Santa' and 'Dia de los Muertos', which celebrated death with joyous, colourful carnivals, and the Moorish roots of much Andalucian life including gypsy and flamenco dancing. The Andalucian landscape was a constant presence in his works from the 1960s and beyond. Whilst previously he had been drawn to the Essex landscape, the ochres, umbers and mud-greens of a desolate and bleak environment, the light and colours of Spain were an extraordinary revelation. Crozier described Spain as a nature “without mid-tones”: stark contrasts of bold colours, immense heat, Mediterranean light and corresponding shadows and the topography itself combined to push Crozier’s landscapes into dynamically bold territory.
‘Death’s Way II', 1969, was painted in the year in which Crozier visited Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, and the presence of death and suffering became palpably present in his work. The Spanish landscape is still the subject of ‘Death’s Way II', but made unsettling by the morbid title. On a lush green hillside, perhaps with a river flowing down, stand two scrub-like trees, perhaps the orange or almond trees which populate Andalucía. Painted in unexpected vibrant shades of orange, red and green with bold black trunks, the trees are powerful presences. With a certain symmetry of composition unusual for Crozier, they lean towards one another, one from upper left and the other from bottom right. The sky behind is a menancing yet richly coloured swathe of black edged in red. A curious amalgamation of morbidity, vivacity and celebration, the landscape seems vital with an explosion of oranges, greens, reds and blues, the canvas covered with spontaneous, rapidly applied bold strokes of paint, but still the title and the menacingly black sky cast a sinister undertone. As with the Spanish festivals which so inspired Crozier, life and death are innately interconnected.
Based between London and Essex throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Crozier focused on the landscape, which became the source of visceral paintings, full of primitive energy. In the early 1960s the human figure entered Crozier's imagey, interred in the blasted landscape or seen as flayed, skeletal and screaming. A visit to the notorious Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in the 1960s left an indelible mark. From the 1980s, Crozier split his time betwen West Cork and London, and his depiction of the landscape blossomed with an extraordinary radiance. Crozier died in 2011. His work is held in the collections of the Tate, the Imperial War Museum, Ireland's Great Hunger Museum, Conneticut, and the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin. A major retrospective opens at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, in autumn 2017.
Profoundly affected by post-war existential philosophy, Crozier allied himself and his work consciously with contemporary European art throughout the 1950s and 1960s, towards European painters such as Dubuffet, Soulanges, Hartung and de Stael, rather than with the New York abstractionists. Crozier spent 1963 in southern Spain with the Irish poet Anthony Cronin; a stay that would prove pivotal to Crozier’s development as an artist for both the landscape and the culture. Crozier became fascinated by Spanish religious festivals such as 'Semana Santa' and 'Dia de los Muertos', which celebrated death with joyous, colourful carnivals, and the Moorish roots of much Andalucian life including gypsy and flamenco dancing. The Andalucian landscape was a constant presence in his works from the 1960s and beyond. Whilst previously he had been drawn to the Essex landscape, the ochres, umbers and mud-greens of a desolate and bleak environment, the light and colours of Spain were an extraordinary revelation. Crozier described Spain as a nature “without mid-tones”: stark contrasts of bold colours, immense heat, Mediterranean light and corresponding shadows and the topography itself combined to push Crozier’s landscapes into dynamically bold territory.
‘Death’s Way II', 1969, was painted in the year in which Crozier visited Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, and the presence of death and suffering became palpably present in his work. The Spanish landscape is still the subject of ‘Death’s Way II', but made unsettling by the morbid title. On a lush green hillside, perhaps with a river flowing down, stand two scrub-like trees, perhaps the orange or almond trees which populate Andalucía. Painted in unexpected vibrant shades of orange, red and green with bold black trunks, the trees are powerful presences. With a certain symmetry of composition unusual for Crozier, they lean towards one another, one from upper left and the other from bottom right. The sky behind is a menancing yet richly coloured swathe of black edged in red. A curious amalgamation of morbidity, vivacity and celebration, the landscape seems vital with an explosion of oranges, greens, reds and blues, the canvas covered with spontaneous, rapidly applied bold strokes of paint, but still the title and the menacingly black sky cast a sinister undertone. As with the Spanish festivals which so inspired Crozier, life and death are innately interconnected.
Provenance
The Artist's Estate
