WILLIAM CROZIER: NATURE INTO ABSTRACTION

THE LIGHTBOX, WOKING

Until June 19

Scots/Irish artist William Crozier (1930-2011) established his reputation as one of the leading artists of his generation in post-war Britain with a remarkable series of landscape paintings produced from 1958 to 1961.

Crozier’s radical vision of nature dug into ‘the savagery just beneath the surface’* of the fields and marshlands of north Essex, where he lived at that time, to create a highly original abstract vocabulary. A mood of existential angst permeates his excavations – made with visceral painterly gestures – of the area’s bleak winter topography. The unease is apparent in a commitment to observational detail, and a rejection of the pure abstraction of America’s Abstract Expressionists, even while his innovative mark making sought a potent release from the representational.  

Born in Glasgow to Irish parents, Crozier studied at the Glasgow School of Art before spending time in Paris and Dublin, then settling in London. Throughout his career Crozier explored the tension between representation and abstraction. He enjoyed early success, gaining notoriety for his assemblages and paintings, and becoming part of the milieu of 50s Soho, alongside John Minton and William Scott, among others. A stay in southern Spain in 1963, which inspired a fascination with the country’s religious festivals, and visits to Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen in 1969, were pivotal in his development as an artist. His series of dynamic skeletal works prefigured the New Expressionists of the 80s. 

William Crozier was awarded the Premio Lissone in Milan in 1958 and the Oireachtas Gold Medal for Painting in Dublin in 1994. He was elected to Aosdána in 1992, also becoming an honorary member of the Royal Hibernian Academy. His work is held by Tate and the National Gallery of Ireland.

The Lightbox Woking is now showing the powerful landscape paintings that made his name, many of which have not been seen since they were first exhibited in the 60s. The exhibition has been organised in collaboration with the William Crozier Estate and Piano Nobile. It is accompanied by a fully illustrated exhibition catalogue.

* GM Butcher, Introduction to Crozier’s 1961 Drian Gallery solo exhibition