Conrad Marca-Relli, “Summer Noon – L – 20”, 1968, Oil , Canvas and Burlap Collage on Canvas, 56 x 72 Inches
Conrad Marca-Relli was an American artist born in Boston who belonged to the early generation of New York School Abstract Expressionism. Along with Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Robert Motherwell, Marca-Relli was part of the leading art movement of the postwar era.
In 1930 at the age of seventeen, Marca-Relli studied for one year at the Cooper Union, a private arts and science college. He later worked at the Works Progress Administration (WPA) first as a teacher and then painting murals with the Federal Art Project division. After serving in World War II, he taught at Yale University during 1954 and 1955, later teaching at the University of California, Berkeley, during 1959 and 1960.
Marca-Relli’s early still lives, cityscapes and circus paintings are reminiscent of the surrealist work of Giorgio de Chirico. He created many large scale collages throughout his career, combining oil paint with collage, using intense colors, broken surfaces, and splatters of paint in an expressionistic style. His later works showed a simplicity with black or somber colors and more rectangular shapes with neutral backgrounds.