Abstract Expressionist Alfonso Ossorio grappled with themes of childhood, birth, sexuality, mythology and religion in his vivid art. Before becoming close friends with artists Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner and Jean Dubuffet, he inherited a sugar fortune and amassed an art collection that became part of the Fogg Museum at Harvard University. It includes works by artist Thomas Derrick, sculptor Eric Gill, wood engraver Philip Hagreen, illustrator Denis Tegetmeier and artist and poet David Jones.
Born in 1916, Ossorio grew up in Manila in the Philippines. He later attended a Catholic boarding school in England and settled in the United States in 1930. He enrolled at Harvard in 1934 and, in 1937, launched an art career with cover designs for publications of work by poet Arthur Rimbaud. He received a bachelor’s degree in 1938 and complemented his art history studies with studio art classes at the Rhode Island School of Design. After his first solo exhibition at the Wakefield Gallery in 1941, Ossorio served the American Armed Forces until 1946. He met his lifelong partner, Ted Dragon, in 1948, as well as Pollock who guided his exploration of Abstract Expressionism.
Ossorio’s major works included a mural commissioned for the Chapel of St. Joseph the Worker in the Philippines. His return to his home country fueled a search inwards as a source of inspiration.
Ossorio bought an East Hampton, New York, estate, known as the Creeks, in which he housed Dubuffet’s entire Compagnie de l’Art Brut collection. By the late 1950s, Ossorio was heavily involved in curating and organizing exhibitions including shows featuring Pollock, Dubuffet, Willem de Kooning, Hans Hofmann, Mark Rothko and David Smith.
In the 1960s, Ossorio created his best known works. These “congregations,” as he called them, are assemblage sculptures of shells, pearls, feathers and driftwood playing on the connections between life and decay, and the raw and the refined.
Ossorio’s art is in collections around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. International exhibitions featuring his work have been held at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Scotland and the National Museum of Modern Art in Japan as well as the L’Art Brut Museum in Switzerland and the 2019 Singapore Biennale.
On 1stDibs, find a collection of Alfonso Ossorio prints and multiples.
Untitled VI, Abstract Etching by Alfonso Ossorio
By Alfonso Ossorio
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Alfonso Ossorio (Filipino, 1916-1990) Title: Untitled VII Year: 1984 Medium: Etching, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: PP Image Size: 24 x 17.75 inches Paper Size...
Etching
Amordie, Abstract Expressionist Etching by Alfonso Ossorio
By Alfonso Ossorio
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Alfonso Ossorio (Filipino, 1916-1990) Title: Amordie Year: 1983 Medium: Etching, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 36 Image Size: 11 x 7 inches Paper Size: 18 x 12 in. ...
Etching
Untitled VII, Abstract Expressionist Etching by Alfonso Ossorio
By Alfonso Ossorio
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Alfonso Ossorio (Filipino, 1916-1990) Title: Untitled VII Year: 1984/1990 Medium: Etching, signed in pencil Edition: P.P. Image Size: 23.5 x 17.75 inches Paper Size: 30.75 x ...
Etching
RUSSELL'S WAY
By Al Held
Located in Three Oaks, MI
In excellent condition from an edition of 50, this piece is beautifully framed in museum-quality materials. Al Held is best remembered for his large-scale paintings of bright, hard-e...
Archival Paper, Etching, Aquatint
$2,842
H 29.93 in W 22.05 in D 0.04 in
Jean Miotte - Abstract Composition - Original Signed Lithograph
By Jean Miotte
Located in Collonge Bellerive, Geneve, CH
Jean Miotte - Rare Original Signed Lithograph Title: Abstract Composition Dimensions: 76 x 56 cm Edition: 64/99 Signed and Numbered in pencil Jean Miotte, 1926 - 2016 Miotte came o...
Aquatint
$1,450
H 26.5 in W 21.75 in D 0.25 in
African American Abstract Expressionist Etching Aquatint "Anatomy of Aphrodite"
By Warrington Colescott
Located in Portland, OR
An important abstract expressionist color aquatint etching by the celebrated African American artist (1921-2018), titled "An Anatomy of Aphrodite", signed & dated 1959. Colescott was...
Etching, Aquatint
André Lanskoy - Composition - Original Etching
By André Lanskoy
Located in Collonge Bellerive, Geneve, CH
André Lanskoy - Composition - Original Etching From Dédale Edition: 190 Dimensions: 32 x 18 cm This etching is from the first series of etching Lanskoy made. Unsigned and unumbered ...
Etching
$1,421
H 29.93 in W 22.05 in D 0.04 in
Jean Miotte - Abstract Composition - Original Aquatint Engraving
By Jean Miotte
Located in Collonge Bellerive, Geneve, CH
Jean Miotte - Rare Original Aquatint Engraving Title: Abstract Composition Dimensions: 76 x 56 cm Jean Miotte, 1926 - 2016 Miotte came of artistic age in the decade after World War...
Aquatint
André Lanskoy - Composition - Original Etching
By André Lanskoy
Located in Collonge Bellerive, Geneve, CH
André Lanskoy - Composition - Original Etching From Dédale Edition: 190 Dimensions: 32 x 18 cm This etching is from the first series of etching Lanskoy m...
Etching
André Lanskoy - Composition - Original Etching
By André Lanskoy
Located in Collonge Bellerive, Geneve, CH
André Lanskoy - Composition - Original Etching From Dédale Material: Made on Lambskin Edition: 190 Dimensions: 32 x 18 cm This etching is from the first ...
Etching
$716Sale Price|20% Off
H 36 in W 25 in D 2 in
Vintage Abstract Series #39 Fireworks
By Katherine Chang Liu
Located in Soquel, CA
Period mixed media print and painting by California artist Katherine Chang Liu (American, 20th-century). Signed "Fireworks Series #39" Katherine Chang Liu '87. Presented with a white...
Ink, Oil, Archival Paper, Etching
Untitled
By Cleve Gray
Located in New York, NY
A very good impression of this large, scarce print, color aquatint on white wove Fabriano paper. Artist's proof, aside from the edition of 35. Signed and inscribed "artist's proof" ...
Color, Aquatint
SFE-080RC
By Sam Francis
Located in Östermalm, Stockholms län
Untitled. SFE-080RC. Artwork size : 56 x 76 cm. Frame size : 75 x 97 x 4 cm Museum glass anti-reflective. Signed and numbered 46/75 ex. Sam Francis Archive Number : SF-353. Free shipment worldwide. Sam Francis’s paintings are a journey into a dream, a voyage into the landscapes of the soul where colours are lights on fire. Alongside names such as Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline, Sam Francis is an artist who has succeeded in demonstrating a total mastery of abstract expressionism’s impassioned and spontaneous genre. The explosions of colour – red, blue, green and yellow – the streaks, strokes and bold lines of his pictures are the physical synthesis of the deepest crevices of the soul. His colours create rhythmical motifs that, characteristically enough, can be called the “musicality” of his paintings. The work of Sam Francis provides a visible meeting place for the conscious and the unconscious. His pictures are the cross-fertilisation of what has already been experienced with what exists still only as desire, a struggle between melancholy and merrymaking. Influenced by C.G. Jung, the father of psychoanalysis, Sam Francis spent a large portion of his life exploring the premise that dreams, instincts and intuition provide, the keys which unlock the mysteries and meaning of our inner lives. He was also fascinated by the four ancient elements – earth, water, air and fire – which developed into a leitmotif in his work. Sam Francis was born in San Mateo in California, USA in 1923. After starting to paint at the age of around twenty, he soon found himself increasingly consumed by the power of art. He spent much of the 1950s in Paris, from where he not only made frequent excursions to a number of European cities, but also embarked on many journeys to South America and Asia. He continued to move from place to place, primarily in the USA and Japan, right up until his death in 1994. Sam Francis’s first...
Etching
$2,842
H 29.93 in W 22.05 in D 0.04 in
Jean Miotte - Abstract Composition - Original Signed Lithograph
By Jean Miotte
Located in Collonge Bellerive, Geneve, CH
Jean Miotte - Rare Original Signed Lithograph Title: Abstract Composition Dimensions: 76 x 56 cm Edition: 98/150 Signed and Numbered in pencil Jean Miotte, 1926 - 2016 Miotte came ...
Aquatint
$1,421
H 13.47 in W 12.01 in D 0.04 in
After Henri Michaux - Moments - Original Aquatint
By Henri Michaux
Located in Collonge Bellerive, Geneve, CH
After Henri Michaux - Moments - Original Aquatint Edition of 130 Dimensions: 34.2 x 30.5 cm Vellum paper BFK Rives 1996 Bibliography: Jørgen Ågerup, Zao Wou-Ki: The Graphic Work, A C...
Aquatint
Abstract Expressionist etching by Alphonso Ossorio
By Alfonso Ossorio
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Alfonso Ossorio (Filipino, 1916-1990) Title: Quem Quaeritis Year: 1984 Medium: Etching, signed in pencil Edition: 20/36 Image Size: 23.5 x 17.5 inches Paper Size: 31 x 24 inches
Etching
Abstract Expressionist etching by Alphonso Ossorio
By Alfonso Ossorio
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Alfonso Ossorio (Filipino, 1916-1990) Title: Quod, dixi, dixi Year: 1984 Medium: Etching, signed in pencil Edition: P.P. Image Size: 23.5 x 17.5 inches Paper Size: 31 x 21 in...
Etching
Untitled IV
By Alfonso Ossorio
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Alfonso Ossorio (Filipino, 1916-1990) Title: Untitled IV Year: 1984 Medium: Etching, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: PP Image Size: 8 inches in diameter Paper Si...
Etching
Untitled III, Abstract Print by Alfonso Ossorio
By Alfonso Ossorio
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Alfonso Ossorio (Filipino, 1916-1990) Title: Untitled III Year: 1984 Medium: Etching, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: PP Image Size: 24 x 17.5 inches Paper Size:...
Etching