William G. Congdon
Encyclopedia
William Grosvenor Congdon (April 15, 1912, Providence, Rhode Island
– April 15, 1998, Milan
) gained notoriety as an artist in New York City
in the 1940s, but lived most of his life in Europe
.
In 2001, The Sabbath of History, a book combining his works and the words of the future Pope Benedict XVI
was published.
from a wealthy family of industrialists.
In 1930 he enrolled at Yale University
who attended until 1934, when he became deeply involved in painting under the aegis of Henry Hensch.
In 1940 he opened a studio in Berkshire Hills as a sculptor under the guidance of George Demetrios.
With the U.S. entry into war, Congdon encounters in the tragic horror of war, enlisting in the American Field Service to follow the U.S. Army in rescue in the concentration camp of Bergen Belsen.
It begins as the artist had to face daily boundless cruelty a troubled reflection on the mystery of evil, which accompanies most of her life.
After the war, William returns to New York in 1947 under the fervent cultural impulse that the city has continued to paint. By a ceaseless work as the first born exhibitions that are exposed to the famous Betty Parsons
Gallery, along with works by emerging artists of Action Painting
like Jackson Pollock
, Willem De Kooning
, Franz Kline
and Mark Rothko
.
New York is the haunting ambiguity that he would like to portray, that its obvious mix of good and evil, beauty and corruption, which vehemently attracts the painter.
Soon, however, the artist abandons America and his beloved New York, from which he feels hurt and betrayed because of rampant commercialism and an 'ignorance of the principles that he embraces as necessary. So search values towards closer and more dignified him to Naples where he knows he can meet people with a sincere faith in life, not masked by illusions.
But Italy is bound to disappoint the expectations of the artist who gradually realizes the futility of his quest, the impossibility of finding that coveted nutrition values. He did not give up, does not abandon the desire and so stubborn unceasingly travel to Europe and many countries in Africa through testimonies and leave footprints through his genius.
Just during the period in Europe from 1950 to 1960, his name began to become known and its landscapes to great success by critics who do not hesitate to celebrate his talent. Many compare his views with those of Turner, even if those American reflected a clear tragic note, a demon that he can not exorcise.
Moreover, half of these years, dating back to the memorable meeting with the great Stravinsky, and then the beginning of an intense friendship that lasts for years.
In 1959, a key step for the path of spiritual growth of the painter, when he embraced the Catholic faith by receiving His baptism in Assisi.
From 1960 to 1970 he settled permanently in Assisi where by religious subjects resumed working on landscapes.
Finally in the 70 resume his travels through India 's America and the Near East, until he moved in 1979 to Cascinazza (Buccinasco) Benedictine monastery located in the lower Lombard, where he spent the last few years and then goes off on the 15 April 1998, on his 86th birthday
Paintings :
What People write about him:
Museum Reference:
Andover MA., Addison Gallery OF AMERICAN ART
Atlanta GA, THE TEMPLE- HEBREW BENEVOLENT CONGREGATION.
Boston MA, Museum of Fine Arts
.
Bristol RI, BRISTOL MUSEUM.
Cedar Falls IA, UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN IOWA, LIBRARY.
Cleveland OH, CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART.
Detroit MI, Detroite Institute OF THE ARTS.
Hartford CT, WADSWORTH ATHENAEUM.
New Haven CT, YALE UNIVERSITY ART GALLERY.
Kansas City MO, COLLECTION HALLMARK CARDS INC.
Louisville KY, Speed Art Museum
OF ART.
Metropolitan Museum OF ART.
Museum of Modern Art
MoMa
.
Whitney museum of modern Art.
Memphis TN, MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART.
New Brunswick NJ, JANE-VOORHEES-ZIMMERLI ART MUSEUM.
Pittsburgh PA, MUSEUM OF THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTE.
Portsmouth RI, PORTSMOUTH PRIORY.
RHODE ISLAND SCHOOL of DESIGN.
MUSEUM OF ART, R. I. S. D.
PROVIDENCE COLLEGE.
Rochester NY, Memorial Art Gallery
.
Santa Barbara CA, SANTA BARBARA MUSEUM OF ART.
South Bend IN, THE SNITE MUSEUM, UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME.
Southborough MA, ST. MARK’S COLLEGE PREPARATORY SCHOOL.
St. Louis MO, ST. LOUIS ART MUSEUM.
Syracuse NY, SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY ART COLLECTION, SIMS HALL.
Toledo OH, Toledo Museum.
Tulsa OK, Philbrook museum of Art
.
Urbana-Champaign IL, KRANNERT ART MUSEUM.
Utica NY, MUNSON-WILLIAMS-PROCTOR INSTITUTE.
Phillips Collection
(MODERN ART GAL.)
SMITHSONIAN: NATIONAL COLLECTION.
Assisi, Pro Civitate Christiana, Galleria D’Arte Moderna.
Cambridge, England, KETTLE’S YARD COLLECTION (University of Cambridge).
Rome, Italy: MINISTERO DELL’INDUSTRIA DEL COMMERCIO E DEL ARTIGIANATO.
CENTRO STUDI LAZIO.
COLLEZIONE VATICANA D’ARTE RELIGIOSA MODERNA.
Venice, Italy: THE Peggy Guggenheim
COLLECTION.
Venezia MUSEO D’ARTE MODERNA.
Viterbo, Italy MUSEO D’ARTE MODERNA.
Providence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of Rhode Island and was one of the first cities established in the United States. Located in Providence County, it is the third largest city in the New England region...
– April 15, 1998, Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
) gained notoriety as an artist in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
in the 1940s, but lived most of his life in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
.
In 2001, The Sabbath of History, a book combining his works and the words of the future Pope Benedict XVI
Pope Benedict XVI
Benedict XVI is the 265th and current Pope, by virtue of his office of Bishop of Rome, the Sovereign of the Vatican City State and the leader of the Catholic Church as well as the other 22 sui iuris Eastern Catholic Churches in full communion with the Holy See...
was published.
Biography
William Grosvenor Congdon was born April 15, 1912 in Providence, Rhode IslandProvidence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of Rhode Island and was one of the first cities established in the United States. Located in Providence County, it is the third largest city in the New England region...
from a wealthy family of industrialists.
In 1930 he enrolled at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
who attended until 1934, when he became deeply involved in painting under the aegis of Henry Hensch.
In 1940 he opened a studio in Berkshire Hills as a sculptor under the guidance of George Demetrios.
With the U.S. entry into war, Congdon encounters in the tragic horror of war, enlisting in the American Field Service to follow the U.S. Army in rescue in the concentration camp of Bergen Belsen.
It begins as the artist had to face daily boundless cruelty a troubled reflection on the mystery of evil, which accompanies most of her life.
After the war, William returns to New York in 1947 under the fervent cultural impulse that the city has continued to paint. By a ceaseless work as the first born exhibitions that are exposed to the famous Betty Parsons
Betty Parsons
Betty Parsons, born Betty Bierne Pierson, was an American artist and art dealer known for her early promotion of Abstract Expressionism. She was known as "the den mother of Abstract Expressionism"...
Gallery, along with works by emerging artists of Action Painting
Action painting
Action painting sometimes called "gestural abstraction", is a style of painting in which paint is spontaneously dribbled, splashed or smeared onto the canvas, rather than being carefully applied...
like Jackson Pollock
Jackson Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock , known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality, and...
, Willem De Kooning
Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning was a Dutch American abstract expressionist artist who was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands....
, Franz Kline
Franz Kline
Franz Jozef Kline was an American painter mainly associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement centered around New York in the 1940s and 1950s. He was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and attended Girard College, an academy in Philadelphia for fatherless boys...
and Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko, born Marcus Rothkowitz , was a Russian-born American painter. He is classified as an abstract expressionist, although he himself rejected this label, and even resisted classification as an "abstract painter".- Childhood :Mark Rothko was born in Dvinsk, Vitebsk Province, Russian...
.
New York is the haunting ambiguity that he would like to portray, that its obvious mix of good and evil, beauty and corruption, which vehemently attracts the painter.
Soon, however, the artist abandons America and his beloved New York, from which he feels hurt and betrayed because of rampant commercialism and an 'ignorance of the principles that he embraces as necessary. So search values towards closer and more dignified him to Naples where he knows he can meet people with a sincere faith in life, not masked by illusions.
But Italy is bound to disappoint the expectations of the artist who gradually realizes the futility of his quest, the impossibility of finding that coveted nutrition values. He did not give up, does not abandon the desire and so stubborn unceasingly travel to Europe and many countries in Africa through testimonies and leave footprints through his genius.
Just during the period in Europe from 1950 to 1960, his name began to become known and its landscapes to great success by critics who do not hesitate to celebrate his talent. Many compare his views with those of Turner, even if those American reflected a clear tragic note, a demon that he can not exorcise.
Moreover, half of these years, dating back to the memorable meeting with the great Stravinsky, and then the beginning of an intense friendship that lasts for years.
In 1959, a key step for the path of spiritual growth of the painter, when he embraced the Catholic faith by receiving His baptism in Assisi.
From 1960 to 1970 he settled permanently in Assisi where by religious subjects resumed working on landscapes.
Finally in the 70 resume his travels through India 's America and the Near East, until he moved in 1979 to Cascinazza (Buccinasco) Benedictine monastery located in the lower Lombard, where he spent the last few years and then goes off on the 15 April 1998, on his 86th birthday
Paintings :
- Naples Afternoon at the Museum of Fine Arts, BostonMuseum of Fine Arts, BostonThe Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, is one of the largest museums in the United States, attracting over one million visitors a year. It contains over 450,000 works of art, making it one of the most comprehensive collections in the Americas...
- Canal at the The Phillips Collection
- Venice at the The Phillips Collection
- Destroyed City at the Addison Gallery
- Positano at the Addison Gallery
- Positano#1 at the Yale University Art GalleryYale University Art GalleryThe Yale University Art Gallery houses a significant and encyclopedic collection of art in several buildings on the campus of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Although it embraces all cultures and periods, the Gallery possesses especially renowned collections of early Italian painting,...
- Piazza San Marco at the Yale University Art GalleryYale University Art GalleryThe Yale University Art Gallery houses a significant and encyclopedic collection of art in several buildings on the campus of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Although it embraces all cultures and periods, the Gallery possesses especially renowned collections of early Italian painting,...
- Italian Moon at the Yale University Art GalleryYale University Art GalleryThe Yale University Art Gallery houses a significant and encyclopedic collection of art in several buildings on the campus of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Although it embraces all cultures and periods, the Gallery possesses especially renowned collections of early Italian painting,...
- Athens at the MomaMomaMoma may refer to:* Moma , an owlet moth genus* Moma Airport, a Russian public airport* Moma District, Nampula, Mozambique* Moma River, a right tributary of the Indigirka River* Google Moma, the Google corporate intranet...
- Eiffel Tower #1, 1955 at the Memorial Art GalleryMemorial Art GalleryThe Memorial Art Gallery is the civic art museum of Rochester, New York. Founded in 1913, it is part of the University of Rochester and occupies the southern half of the University's former Prince Street campus...
- Piazza San Marco at the Kettle's YardKettle's YardKettle's Yard is an art gallery and house in Cambridge, England.- History and overview :Kettle's Yard was originally the Cambridge home of Jim Ede and his wife Helen. Moving to Cambridge in 1956, they converted four small cottages into one idiosyncratic house and a place to display Ede's collection...
- Guatemala #7 at the Kettle's YardKettle's YardKettle's Yard is an art gallery and house in Cambridge, England.- History and overview :Kettle's Yard was originally the Cambridge home of Jim Ede and his wife Helen. Moving to Cambridge in 1956, they converted four small cottages into one idiosyncratic house and a place to display Ede's collection...
- Canal from Giudecca at the Kettle's YardKettle's YardKettle's Yard is an art gallery and house in Cambridge, England.- History and overview :Kettle's Yard was originally the Cambridge home of Jim Ede and his wife Helen. Moving to Cambridge in 1956, they converted four small cottages into one idiosyncratic house and a place to display Ede's collection...
- Indian Temple at the Kettle's YardKettle's YardKettle's Yard is an art gallery and house in Cambridge, England.- History and overview :Kettle's Yard was originally the Cambridge home of Jim Ede and his wife Helen. Moving to Cambridge in 1956, they converted four small cottages into one idiosyncratic house and a place to display Ede's collection...
- Indian Temple 2 at the Kettle's YardKettle's YardKettle's Yard is an art gallery and house in Cambridge, England.- History and overview :Kettle's Yard was originally the Cambridge home of Jim Ede and his wife Helen. Moving to Cambridge in 1956, they converted four small cottages into one idiosyncratic house and a place to display Ede's collection...
- Moon Night Subiaco at the Kettle's YardKettle's YardKettle's Yard is an art gallery and house in Cambridge, England.- History and overview :Kettle's Yard was originally the Cambridge home of Jim Ede and his wife Helen. Moving to Cambridge in 1956, they converted four small cottages into one idiosyncratic house and a place to display Ede's collection...
- Moon Night Subiaco 2 at the Kettle's YardKettle's YardKettle's Yard is an art gallery and house in Cambridge, England.- History and overview :Kettle's Yard was originally the Cambridge home of Jim Ede and his wife Helen. Moving to Cambridge in 1956, they converted four small cottages into one idiosyncratic house and a place to display Ede's collection...
What People write about him:
- Clement GreenbergClement GreenbergClement Greenberg was an American essayist known mainly as an influential visual art critic closely associated with American Modern art of the mid-20th century...
: " Congdon’s subjects are just urban views and buildings and he, following Klee, does not scorn the monotony of their structure. But if the structure is monotonous, the effect is not so. This repetitive all-over composition, without beginning or end, has previously appeared in analytical cubism and more recently in the work of painters like Mark Tobey, Jackson Pollock, and Janet Sobel [...] I am anxious to see what Congdon will do now. My impression is that he is only at the start of the evolution that will decide who he is as a painter. " - Peggy GuggenheimPeggy GuggenheimMarguerite "Peggy" Guggenheim was an American art collector. Born to a wealthy New York City family, she was the daughter of Benjamin Guggenheim, who went down with the Titanic in 1912 and the niece of Solomon R. Guggenheim, who would establish the Solomon R...
: "‘William Congdon is the only painter since Turner, who has understood Venice, its mystery, its poetry and its passion. He has a modern way of expressing himself, but his insight is as old as the city itself. He has been able to gather up the emotional essence of many centuries and has melted this vision into such a fantastic and beautiful dream that his paintings leave one breathless […] They are made of lava; they are blazing; they palpitate with the life and passion of all the Venetians who have long since gone to their final resting places." - Jacques MaritainJacques MaritainJacques Maritain was a French Catholic philosopher. Raised as a Protestant, he converted to Catholicism in 1906. An author of more than 60 books, he helped to revive St. Thomas Aquinas for modern times and is a prominent drafter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights...
: "When I met William Congdon in Paris, what most struck me about him was a strangely deep douceur, a defenseless candor, a vulnerability to any spiritual arrow, either the arrows of the distress of this world and of that beauty which wounds the senses, or the arrows of the supramundane shores. With him, as with Rouault… I felt that astonishing resemblance between the man and the work which is characteristic of genuinely great artists." - Mazzariol Giuseppe: "The story of a character of extraordinary opportunities, encounters and destiny is fascinating and in telling it the story itself, of a life intensely suffered and expressed, will necessarily affect us and convey to us moments of poetry, adventure, enlightenment and invention […] However […] it would be negligence to tell his story before that of his work as a painter, if only because his commitment to painting can be identified with his commitment to life and the forms of his painting themselves contain entire, true and direct, the charge of his existence."
- Giulio Carlo ArganGiulio Carlo ArganGiulio Carlo Argan was an Italian art historian and politician.-Biography:Argan was born in Turin and studied in the University of Turin, graduating in 1931. In 1928 he entered the National Fascist Party...
: "I believe Congdon has moved in the opposite direction to that of Gorky. He wanted to translate into our fundamentally – even pathetically - naturalistic European language, the anger of his original rebellion against the uniformity, the regularity, that brand of compulsory optimism which was imposed upon the American society. […] his contact with Europe, his way of communicating with the humanism of a suffering and moribund Europe, was not only an act of intellectual piety […] but also an opening toward the future. It was the sun at the end of a tunnel." - Testori GiovanniGiovanni Testori"'Giovanni Testori'" was a major Italian writer, playwright, art historian and literary critic. His literary works are characterised by linguistic experimentalism, featuring both lexicon and syntax that mix and fuse elements of the Lombard dialect with French and English...
: " In Congdon’s Lombardy paintings there is the ability to close and open the liturgical sense and sound of life. […] And these paintings – for we are talking about painting – are “Longobard” also because they have the magnificence of those ancient jewels: their beauty is such that words should be switched off and one should linger in front of it, and learn from that tight, splendid, secret language of that unexpected and powerful goldsmith of our times that is the last Congdon" - Selz Peter: " Quite distant in space as well as in his mind, from the changing styles of the art world, he pursued his search and worked in a highly personal style. His recent paintings are no longer fields of action. Stripped of external appearances, Congdon’s paintings are now concise and silent representations whose sensuous surfaces cloak a transcendent presence."
- Licht Fred: " The city as an expression of the totality of human aspirations and illusions, will be […] central to his art. […], the war revealed community and individual to have no protective shell. The ruins bore the whole spiritual, political, and biological history of the human race. The architectural motif, […] the ‘shell’ that humanity has built as a physical and spiritual refuge reveals itself not just as a protective wrapping […] , but also as a symbol of dignity and mystery."
- Barbieri Giuseppe : "Congdon knew how to ensure that each painting, actually each draft sketch, had an independent irreversible place of “birth”. His paintings are born, as he obsessively repeats, not created. The images are the result of a creatural, not creative, dimension of the artistic act."
- Cacciari Massimo : "William Congdon […] can be properly understood only by reference to the theory and experience of the icon […] because the series of his crucifixes are icons, reversed icons on a black base and not on a gold base like the icons from the East. […] The oriental icon has always been one of triumph, of victory, a promise of a celestial Jerusalem. In contrast, Congdon’s icons start from black and one can feel it, the black table on the background: from the culmination of the kénosis, from the crucifixion itself, one draws out the color."
Museum Reference:
Andover MA., Addison Gallery OF AMERICAN ART
Atlanta GA, THE TEMPLE- HEBREW BENEVOLENT CONGREGATION.
Boston MA, Museum of Fine Arts
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, is one of the largest museums in the United States, attracting over one million visitors a year. It contains over 450,000 works of art, making it one of the most comprehensive collections in the Americas...
.
Bristol RI, BRISTOL MUSEUM.
Cedar Falls IA, UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN IOWA, LIBRARY.
Cleveland OH, CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART.
Detroit MI, Detroite Institute OF THE ARTS.
Hartford CT, WADSWORTH ATHENAEUM.
New Haven CT, YALE UNIVERSITY ART GALLERY.
Kansas City MO, COLLECTION HALLMARK CARDS INC.
Louisville KY, Speed Art Museum
Speed Art Museum
The Speed Art Museum, originally known as the J.B. Speed Memorial Museum, now colloquially referred to as the Speed by locals, is the oldest, largest, and foremost museum of art in Kentucky...
OF ART.
Metropolitan Museum OF ART.
Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
MoMa
Moma
Moma may refer to:* Moma , an owlet moth genus* Moma Airport, a Russian public airport* Moma District, Nampula, Mozambique* Moma River, a right tributary of the Indigirka River* Google Moma, the Google corporate intranet...
.
Whitney museum of modern Art.
Memphis TN, MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART.
New Brunswick NJ, JANE-VOORHEES-ZIMMERLI ART MUSEUM.
Pittsburgh PA, MUSEUM OF THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTE.
Portsmouth RI, PORTSMOUTH PRIORY.
RHODE ISLAND SCHOOL of DESIGN.
MUSEUM OF ART, R. I. S. D.
PROVIDENCE COLLEGE.
Rochester NY, Memorial Art Gallery
Memorial Art Gallery
The Memorial Art Gallery is the civic art museum of Rochester, New York. Founded in 1913, it is part of the University of Rochester and occupies the southern half of the University's former Prince Street campus...
.
Santa Barbara CA, SANTA BARBARA MUSEUM OF ART.
South Bend IN, THE SNITE MUSEUM, UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME.
Southborough MA, ST. MARK’S COLLEGE PREPARATORY SCHOOL.
St. Louis MO, ST. LOUIS ART MUSEUM.
Syracuse NY, SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY ART COLLECTION, SIMS HALL.
Toledo OH, Toledo Museum.
Tulsa OK, Philbrook museum of Art
Philbrook Museum of Art
The Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma is an art museum and former home of Oklahoma oil pioneer Waite Phillips and his wife Genevieve Phillips. , the museum has a staff of 60 and an operating budget of nearly $6 million....
.
Urbana-Champaign IL, KRANNERT ART MUSEUM.
Utica NY, MUNSON-WILLIAMS-PROCTOR INSTITUTE.
Phillips Collection
Phillips Collection
The Phillips Collection is an art museum founded by Duncan Phillips in 1921 as the Phillips Memorial Gallery located in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Phillips was the grandson of James H...
(MODERN ART GAL.)
SMITHSONIAN: NATIONAL COLLECTION.
Assisi, Pro Civitate Christiana, Galleria D’Arte Moderna.
Cambridge, England, KETTLE’S YARD COLLECTION (University of Cambridge).
Rome, Italy: MINISTERO DELL’INDUSTRIA DEL COMMERCIO E DEL ARTIGIANATO.
CENTRO STUDI LAZIO.
COLLEZIONE VATICANA D’ARTE RELIGIOSA MODERNA.
Venice, Italy: THE Peggy Guggenheim
Peggy Guggenheim
Marguerite "Peggy" Guggenheim was an American art collector. Born to a wealthy New York City family, she was the daughter of Benjamin Guggenheim, who went down with the Titanic in 1912 and the niece of Solomon R. Guggenheim, who would establish the Solomon R...
COLLECTION.
Venezia MUSEO D’ARTE MODERNA.
Viterbo, Italy MUSEO D’ARTE MODERNA.