Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 6
Ford CrullBirds Cry1989
1989
$25,000
£18,881.68
€21,811.27
CA$35,221.44
A$37,722.18
CHF 20,279.18
MX$458,157.86
NOK 256,237.34
SEK 234,604.34
DKK 162,970.07
About the Item
“It is terrifying to paint. When you start out, you are faced with this great unknown. And you think, am I ever going to paint again? Yet, as you work, it starts to formulate itself. Ultimately every work really just decides itself. I love to paint. I love the smell of paint (oil) and the way it does different things depending on how you apply it. I love how if you use a lot of turpentine, it forms these rivulets like streams in the desert. Acrylics just can’t match the intensity or viscosity of oils. In early days, I painted landscapes and portraits, but I tried to infuse them with my own nomenclature. The colors, brushstrokes, and marks that I put on a canvas transfigure into a profound sensibility that I cannot deal with in any other way. And color is a way of expressing my emotions, and the way it is planted in my works helps tell the story.
When I was a boy I drew incessantly. I had sheets of paper roughly 10 by 15 inches, and I covered them with Civil War soldiers. Literally hundreds of them, each drawn with the same delicacy as if they were alive. Later I advanced to WW2, with German soldiers attacking the well-meaning but hapless British, grey against ochre, tanks and explosions, and beautiful landscapes where it happened.
As I became older, I wondered what it was that had so intrigued me with these war scenarios. I became fascinated with the symbols, icons and pictograms that were behind these historic conflicts. They had a substance and meaning for me that far outweighed their prescribed meaning. A cross meant Christianity, but in the films of Sergei Eisenstein, there was a distinction between the Teutonic knights with their iron helmets invading the Russian orthodox warriors to the east. A cross could mean many things, we bow down before a cross, but are repulsed by a swastika. Yet they are related. If you cut the corners of a circle with a cross bisecting it, an early Christian icon, it becomes a Sulfot cross, and then a swastika. In the hands of the Nazis, a symbol of profound evil.
Symbols have an intrinsic power; a drama and mystery that fascinates me. I became bewitched with how symbols invade and influence what we believe and think about who we are. This sensibility became the fodder for my painting.
What makes painting so interesting to me is that there are multiple realities, multiple interpretations possible. What gives the painting a life of its own is that everyone is seeing something different based on their own experience, that way, to the viewer, the painting has a continued life. Some paintings will just resonate with you, when the symbols and pictograms, and icons have this rich elegance, the piece works. It means that the symbols and icons we are subject to daily, vastly influence our lives in a way we are totally unconscious of. And that is what has importance for me. It determines and manifests in our lives and in my work an unconsciousness that I am not cognizant of in my normal day-to-day existence. This is where my art stems from. It is subtle but real, and infects me like a disease. I try to find why and how these symbols and icons have such a powerful and meaningful reality in my life.
How do we see ourselves in any kind of personal integrity, how do we form a sense of Self and Identity without constantly feeling that it is being ebbed out into the vast…? Painting, for me, is a way of developing one’s own iconography, a personal metaphorical shield.
That is why I paint.”
- Creator:Ford Crull (1954, American)
- Creation Year:1989
- Dimensions:Height: 62 in (157.48 cm)Width: 52 in (132.08 cm)Depth: 1.5 in (3.81 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Framing:Framing Options Available
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:Brooklyn, NY
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU1664216981402
Ford Crull
“My work can be understood through the mind, but it is best felt with the heart, experienced through the emotions, recognized as a manifestation of the spiritual that is born on the picture plane. The ambiguity of the image is central to my expression of life in art.” — Ford Crull
About the Seller
No Reviews Yet
Vetted Professional Seller
Every seller passes strict standards for authenticity and reliability
Established in 2020
1stDibs seller since 2021
10 sales on 1stDibs
Typical response time: 1 hour
- ShippingRetrieving quote...Shipping from: New York, NY
- Return Policy
More From This Seller
View AllSongbirds Sing
By Ford Crull
Located in Brooklyn, NY
“My work can be understood through the mind, but it is best felt with the heart, experienced through the emotions, recognized as a manifestation of the spiritual that is born on the ...
Category
2010s Neo-Expressionist Abstract Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
$17,600 Sale Price
20% Off
Winged Victory
By Ford Crull
Located in Brooklyn, NY
“My work can be understood through the mind, but it is best felt with the heart, experienced through the emotions, recognized as a manifestation of the spiritual that is born on the ...
Category
2010s Neo-Expressionist Abstract Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil Crayon, Oil
$17,600 Sale Price
20% Off
Say It Ain’t So
By Ford Crull
Located in Brooklyn, NY
Oil paint, enamel, oil stick on canvas.
Category
2010s Neo-Expressionist Abstract Paintings
Materials
Enamel
Nevermind
By Ford Crull
Located in Brooklyn, NY
“My work can be understood through the mind, but it is best felt with the heart, experienced through the emotions, recognized as a manifestation of the spiritual that is born on the ...
Category
2010s Neo-Expressionist Abstract Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
$17,600 Sale Price
20% Off
New Star
By Ford Crull
Located in Brooklyn, NY
“My work can be understood through the mind, but it is best felt with the heart, experienced through the emotions, recognized as a manifestation of the spiritual that is born on the ...
Category
2010s Neo-Expressionist Abstract Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
$22,500
Whimsy
By Ford Crull
Located in Brooklyn, NY
“It is terrifying to paint. When you start out, you are faced with this great unknown. And you think, am I ever going to paint again? Yet, as you work, it starts to formulate itself...
Category
2010s Neo-Expressionist Abstract Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
$7,800
You May Also Like
Final Birds
By C. Dimitri
Located in Brooklyn, NY
Oil paint and oil on paper mounted on wood panel. Mostly monochromatic gestural abstraction with multiple bird images.
Category
2010s Abstract Abstract Paintings
Materials
Mixed Media, Oil, Wood Panel
And The Birds Sang
By Don Wunderlee
Located in Boston, MA
Artist Commentary:
The language of form and color, the tools of abstract painting provide unlimited potential to express poetic ideas. Often a visual idea can have its roots in an a...
Category
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Abstract Paintings
Materials
Paper, Acrylic
Something Happened
By Kat O'Neill
Located in New York, NY
Archival inks and acrylic on canvas. Gallery wrap continues the images on all the borders. Vibrant colors.
About the Artist:
Kat is an award-winning photographer, mixed m...
Category
2010s Abstract Abstract Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Archival Ink, Acrylic
Abstract
Located in Missouri, MO
Abstract, 1971
By Dan Howard (b. 1931)
Unframed: 29" x 35"
Framed: 30" x 36"
Signed Lower Left
Influenced by artists of such varying styles as Caravaggio, Rembrandt, De Kooning and Jack Levine, as well as many of the German Neo-Expressionists*, Dan Howard's work often blurs the line between representational* and abstract art*. His experimentation with different canvas preparations, his use of intense colors and his expressive brush strokes have created a myriad of visual combinations in his characteristic larger-sized oil paintings. The result is an emphasis on audience participation and the role of individual interpretation. "I want to make the viewer part of the process. That makes for a richer experience," Howard says.
Throughout his career, Howard has been both a dedicated art teacher-administrator and a gifted professional artist. He chaired the departments of art at Arkansas State University, Kansas State University and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Howard has received 100 prizes, awards and honors including the top awards in the three longest running national open painting competitions: Society of Four Arts, Palm Beach, Fla.; Butler Institute, Youngstown, Ohio; and Chautauqua Institution, New York.
The Omaha World-Herald has acknowledged Howard as "Nebraska's leading award-winning artist." His work is a part of more than 600 public, private and corporate collections including Hallmark Cards, West Law Publishing, United Airlines, Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing (3M), Holiday Inn...
Category
20th Century Abstract Abstract Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
Price Upon Request
To Cry or Not to Cry
By Arlette Stella
Located in Palm Desert, CA
Abstract. Philosophical. Colorful.
Tears tell many stories.
Happy tears tell stories of joy and even relief.
Sad tears tell stories of loss and pain.
When you cry, do you know what...
Category
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Acrylic
FLUID NATURE
By Angel Rivas
Located in CÓRDOBA, ES
Acrylic on canvas
Shipped rolled in a tube
Category
2010s Post-Modern Animal Paintings
Materials
Permanent Marker, Acrylic
