Joseph Glasco

Ariadne on Naxos, c. 1970

1970

Joseph Glasco was an American abstract expressionist painter and sculptor. Perhaps one of the best kept secrets and one of the most amazing stories of 20th century art. Glasco was born in Oklahoma in 1925. He rose to fame at the young age of 25 and was given a one man show at one of New York’s leading galleries. He was also the youngest artist to be represented in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. He was also the 15th artist selected by MOMA to tour in the prestigious “Fifteen Americans” sponsored by MOMA in 1952, along with Pollock, Rothko and others. New York was not his comfort zone. He rebelled against the curators, critics and galleries. He left New York for Taos and ultimately settled in Galveston,TX. Close friends, collectors and sponsors included Stanley Seeger and Julian Schnabel. In 1980, Glasco toured India, Turkey and other countries in the region collecting silks, cloths which he incorporated into a few of his paintings as pictured here. A truly remarkable artist and story as chronicled by Michael Raeburn in The Fifteenth American. He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin. Shortly after, he enlisted in the United States Army during World War II and he served in the Battle of the Bulge. After the war, he enrolled at the Portsmouth Art School in Bristol, England. He also studied at the School of Painting and Sculpture, in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. He subsequently attended the Art Students League of New York. His works are on permanent display in numerous museums, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington and The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.