7: ALEXANDER CORAZZO (1908-1971) OIL ON CANVAS

Alexander Corazzo (1908-1971)
Untitled Cubist Influence Abstraction (Mid 20th Century)
The striking composition employing hard edge color fields in warm, attractive colors is signed lower right. The overlapping shapes each displays its own interesting texture, giving the planar shapes a vibrating quality that completes the effectiveness of the composition.

Alexander Corazzo was a French-born artist who emigrated to America in 1927 for study at the Saint Paul School of Art in Minnesota. He later studied with Laszlo Moholy-Nagy New Bauhuas in Chicago. In 1935, as an early abstractionist, he was invited by his peers to join Le Groupe Abstraction Création of Paris. This association of artists devoted to abstract painting and sculpture included Pablo Picasso, Albert Gleizes, Wassily Kandinsky, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Marcel Duchamp. He was also a member of the American Abstract Artists group founded in 1936 in New York City, and was employed by the WPA around this same time. In 1940 he was put in charge of the Modern Art Exhibits at the Minnesota State fair while his own work was represented by Stendahl Galleries of Los Angeles.

During World War II he applied his skills as an artist to do camouflage work, creating deceptive models of trucks, jeeps, tanks and planes out of scrap lumber and burlap that, when finished, would look like real formations from 10,000 feet. At the same time, he was creating abstract paintings that were exhibited at Guggenheim Art Rooms of the Century Gallery in New York and at the Americana exhibit in San Francisco where he won first prize in 1941 and a $300 purchase award.

His works were also exhibited at the National Gallery of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art and Whitney Museum.

A retrospective exhibition was held at the University of Michigan Museum Museum of Art in 1976.
Canvas measures 24 x 18 with a framed size of 29 x 23 x 2 inches.
Very good untouched condition. There are no issues of scratches, losses, repairs, in-painting or touch-up to any degree.
$1,500 - $2,500