dieser beitrag wurde verfasst in: englisch (eng/en)
name: Criss
vorname: Francis
wikidata-repräsentation: Q2249205
gnd-repräsentation: 110896408
biografische angaben: Born in London in 1901 to a Jewish family, Francis immigrated to Philadelphia with his family when he was only four years old. Shortly after his family’s arrival to the United States, he was hospitalized from a severe case of polio. It was during this time spent in a hospital bed that he experimented with drawing and painting. His father discovered his son’s budding talent and later enrolled him in art classes at Philadelphia’s Graphic Sketch Club. At the young age of fifteen, he had already won a Cresson fellowship to go abroad and study art in Europe.
After he came back to America, he continued his studies at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Criss moved to New York in 1925. His first exhibition was at the New York Contemporary arts gallery in 1931. A year later, the Whitney Museum purchased one of his artworks, Astor Place. The painting depicts two nuns walking past an Italian Renaissance building. After this success Criss became actively involved in the New York art scene, exhibiting at the Museum of Modern Art, the Jeu de Paume in Paris and in several Corcoran biennials.
His artwork showcased an eclectic variation of influences. His few masterpieces are categorized as having influence from the precisionist movement, in which scenes usually depict industrial architecture or urban settings with geometric forms. In 1934, he received the Guggenheim fellowship award which allowed him to go back to Europe and study fresco painting. While in Italy, he produced his famous street scene painting called “Fascism”. These omniscient paintings were a response to the depression that plagued America in the thirties demonstrating feelings of personal, political and social disaster.
Francis Criss was also active in political issues. During the Great Depression, Criss worked under the Works Progress Administration, creating murals for the Williamsburg housing project in New York in 1937 and the Walter Reed Hospital in Washington through the federal arts project. In 1936, he was part of a production at Rockefeller Center in support of the leftists of the civil war in Spain. After World War II, his career took a shift and he disappeared from the public eye.
During the forties, he created commercial artwork and worked for the Coca Cola Company and Fortune and Time magazines. He died in 1972.