William Crozier HRHA (1930-2011) Red Skull Oil on canvas, 59 x 43cm (23¼ x 17'') Signed In the early 1960s, Crozier started to introduce figures into his landscapes, half skeleton and half...

William Crozier HRHA (1930-2011) Red Skull Oil on canvas, 59 x 43cm (23¼ x 17'') Signed In the early 1960s, Crozier started to introduce figures into his landscapes, half skeleton and half man-like creatures, that were to pervade his art for the next fifteen years. He saw this in part as a reaction against the art of his generation that he felt had become 'limited in its aspirations'. Crozier said he wanted to 'convey a sense of austerity and isolation, of emotional unease and perhaps a suggestion of tragedy' (Katharine Crouan (Ed.), William Crozier, Lund Humphries, 2007, p.14). Commenting on these pictures he said 'I always thought of them as portraits,even self portraits' (Op.Cit, p.15) but they are also without question a universal depiction of man. Crozier, having spent several months in Paris at the start of his career, had been particularly influenced by post-war existentialist thought. He had lived through some of the greatest horrors of the 20th Century, and during the 1960s with the Cold War at its height, the question of man's isolation and the condition of mankind was at the forefront of his concerns as an artist. 1956 had brought contemporary American art and in particular Abstract Expressionism to the attention of the British public through an exhibition at the Tate, and Crozier had undoubtedly been influenced by the gestural painting style of this new generation of artists. In the early 1960s he incorporated this in his landscape painting with a reduction of colour, relying upon just primary colours to create landscapes of high emotional drama. Our thanks to Katharine Crouan whose writings formed the basis for this catalogue entry.

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