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Conrad Marca-Relli (born Corrado Marcarelli; June 5, 1913 – August 29, 2000) was an American artist who belonged to the early generation of New York School Abstract Expressionist artists whose artistic innovation by the 1950s had been recognized across the Atlantic, including Paris. New York School Abstract Expressionism, represented by Jackson Pollock, Willem De Kooning, Franz Kline, Marca-Relli and others became a leading art movement of the postwar era.

Biography

Born in Boston, Marcarelli (he changed the spelling later in life) and his parents moved to New York City when he was 13 years old. In 1930 he studied at the Cooper Union for a year. He later supported himself by working for the Works Progress Administration, first as a teacher and then with mural painting divisions of the Federal Art Project during this period he won the Logan Medal of the arts. He served in the US Army military service during World War II (1941-1945).

After the war Marca-Relli joined the "Downtown Group"^[1] which represented group of artists who found studios in lower Manhattan in the area bounded by 8th and 12th street between First and Sixth Avenues during the late 1940s and early 1950s. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, he was actively involved in the avant-garde art world in Greenwich Village. These artists were called the "Downtown Group" as opposed to the "Uptown Group" established during the war at The Art of This Century Gallery.

In 1949 Marca-Relli was among the founders of the "Artists' Club"^[2] located at 39 East 8th Street. He was selected by his fellow artists to show in the Ninth Street Show held on May 21-June 10, 1951^[3]. The show was located at 60 East 9th Street on the first floor and the basement of a building which was about to be demolished.

"The artists celebrated not only the appearance of the dealers, collectors and museum people on the 9th Street, and the consequent exposure of their work but they celebrated the creation and the strength of a living community of significant dimensions." ^[4]

Conrad Marca-Relli was among the 24 out of a total 256 New York School artists included in the Ninth Street Show and in all the following New York Painting and Sculpture Annuals from 1953 to 1957.^[5], ^[6], ^[7], ^[8], ^[9], ^[10]These Annuals were important because the participants were chosen by the artists themselves.^[11]

Marca-Relli's early cityscapes, still lifes, circus themes and architectural motifs are reminiscent of Italian surrealist painter Giorgio de Chirico. Throughout his career, Marca-Relli created monumental-scale collages. He combined oil painting and collage, employing intense colors, broken surfaces and expressionistic spattering. He also experimented with metal and vinyl materials. Over the years the collages developed an abstract simplicity, evidenced by black or somber colors and rectangular shapes isolated against a neutral backdrop.

Marca-Relli taught at Yale University from 1954 to 1955 and from 1959 to 1960, and at the University of California at Berkeley. His first one-man show was in New York City in 1948, and in 1967 the Whitney Museum of American Art gave him a retrospective show.

In 1953, he bought a house near Jackson Pollock's home in Springs, East Hampton. As his career progressed, he increasingly distanced himself from the New York School.

Death

He lived and worked in many countries around the world. In his final years, he lived in Parma, Italy with his wife, Anita Gibson, whom he married in 1951.

Conrad Marca-Relli died on August 29, 2000 in Parma, at the age of 87.

Exhibitions

Works in Museums and Public Collections

References

1. ^ 9th Street Art Exhibition
2. ^ Artists' Club
3. ^ 9th Street Show Poster
4. ^ Bruce Altshuler, Avant-Garde In Exhibition New Art in the 20th Century, New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1944, Chapter 9, p. 171
5. ^ 9th Street Show Poster
6. ^ Second Annual Poster
7. ^ Third Annual Poster
8. ^ Fourth Annual Poster
9. ^ Fifth Annual Poster
10. ^ Six Annual poster
11. ^ New York school : abstract expressionists : artists choice by artists : a complete documentation of the New York painting and sculpture annuals, 1951-1957 p.&nbsp:11-29

Catalogs

• Corrado di Marca-Relli. oils; Text by H. Elkin; Exhibition: Niveau Gallery New York, 1947
• Corrado di Marca-Relli, New Paintings; Exhibition: The New Gallery, New York, 1951
• Marca-Relli: Pastes a painting; Parker Tyler in "ArtNews", November New York, 1955
• Marca-Relli; Text by Gillo Dorfles; Exhibition: Galleria del Naviglio, Milano, 1957
• Marca-Relli - Kootz; Text by W.Rubin; Exhibition: Kootz Gallery, New York, 1959
• William C Agee, Conrad Marca-Relli (New York, Published in the occasion of the personal exhibition at Whitney Museum of American Art by F.A. Praeger, 1967.) OCLC: 1555599
• Conrad Marca-Relli; Marlborough-Gerson Gallery, Marca-Relli Feb. 1970 (New York : Marlborough-Gerson Gallery; Associated galleries: Marlborough Fine Art (London) Ltd., Marlborough Galleria d'Arte, 1970) OCLC: 56224536
• Conrad Marca-Relli; Cordier & Ekstrom, Marca-Relli, new constructions & collages on paper : March 23 to April 23, 1977 (New York : Cordier & Ekstrom, 1977) OCLC: 47714830
• Conrad Marca-Relli; Santiago Amón; Galeria Joan Prats, Marca-Relli 1976-1978(Barcelona : Ediciones Polígrafa, [1978?]) ISBN 8434302659 9788434302655; OCLC: 6284061
• Conrad Marca-Relli, Conrad Marca Relli : the early years, 1955-1962: February 3-27, 1979 (New York : Marlborough Gallery, 1979.) OCLC: 6059559
• Conrad Marca-Relli; Alex Rosenberg Gallery, Conrad Marca-Relli, homage to la belle epoque : new works : October 5-31, 1983 (New York, N.Y. : Alex Rosenberg Gallery, [1983]) OCLC: 47715196
• Marca-Relli; Text by Dore Ashton; Galleria d'Arte Niccoli, Parma, Italy 1990. Exhibition: October 6-November 26, 1990
• Reclaiming Artists of the New York School Toward a More Inclusive view of the 1950s, Exhibition: March 18-April 22, Baruch College CUNY, New York City, 1994 Mishkin Gallery
• Marca-Relli:Tensioni Composte/Composite Tensions; Works from 1939 to 1997; Text by Bruno Corà; Pacini Editore and Galleria Open Art, Prato; 2004 [anthological exhibition, October 14, 2004-January 8, 2005, Prato, Galleria Open Art] ISBN 8877816287
• Conrad Marca-Relli; The New York Years 1945 - 1967; Text by Jasper Sharp; Knoedler & Company Publisher, New York, 2009; Exhibition: September 12 - November 14, 2009, New York, Knoedler & Company Gallery ISBN 978-0-9820749-4-7

Books

• Marca-Relli, Arnason, H.H., 1963, Publisher: Harry N Abrams Inc
• Conrad Marca-Relli; Daniel Giralt-Miracle, (Barcelona: Ediciones Polígrafa, 1976); ISBN 8434302284 9788434302280; OCLC 2304947
• Marca-Relli 1976-1978, Santiago Amon, 1978. Publisher: Galeria Joan Prats, Barcelona.
• Conrad Marca-Relli; Luca Massimo Barbero ed.; Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Conrad Marca-Relli (Milano: Electa, ©1998) ISBN 0295978023/ISBN 9780295978024; OCLC 40848684
• Marca-Relli, Klaus Wolbert and Anja Hespelt,Mathildenhőhe Darmstadt, 2000 ISBN 3-9804553-8-6
• Marika Herskovic, New York School Abstract Expressionists Artists Choice by Artists, (New York School Press, 2000.) ISBN 0-9677994-0-6. pp. 8,12,16,25,37,234-37
• Marca-Relli, l'amico americano - sintonie e dissonanze con Afro e Burri, Marco Vallora 2002, Parma, Publisher: Galleria d'Arte Niccoli
• Marika Herskovic, American Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s An Illustrated Survey, (New York School Press, 2003.) ISBN 0-9677994-1-4. pp. 218-221
• Conrad Marca-Relli, first monograph and catalogue raisonné, essays by David Anfam, Magdalena Dabrowski and Marco Vallora, Museum S.r.l./Bruno Alfieri editore, Milano, 2008; ISBN 8890280425
• Marika Herskovic, American Abstract and Figurative Expressionism Style Is Timely Art Is Timeless (New York School Press, 2009); ISBN 9780967799421, pp. 156-59

External links

• Conrad Marca-Relli Biography and Images: Hollis Taggart Galleries
• Selected works by Conrad Marca-Relli from knoedlergallery.com

See also

• Art movement
• Abstract expressionism
• New York School
• Action painting
• Collage
• Collagist
• Ninth Street Show