Rudolf de Crignis; abstract painter
Hyfler/Rosner
NY Times
Roberta Smith
Rudolf de Crignis, 58, Painter With a Distinct Abstract
Style, Dies
His work:
http://www.rudolfdecrignis.com/
Rudolf de Crignis, a New York abstract painter, died last
Saturday in Manhattan. He was 58.
The cause was an inoperable brain tumor, diagnosed in
November, said his partner, Michael Paoletta.
Mr. de Crignis was born in Winterthur, Switzerland, and
studied at the Form + Farbe School for Art and Media Design
in Zurich and the Academy of Fine Arts in Hamburg, Germany.
He began his artistic career as a performance and video
artist, and as such exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1976
in a group exhibition in the Swiss Pavilion called "The
Environment."
But his interests began to shift to painting during a visit
to New York in the late 1970s or early '80s, when he saw "To
the People of New York," a series of Minimalist abstract
paintings by the German painter Blinky Palermo in the
collection of the Dia Center for the Arts.
Mr. de Crignis began making seemingly monochrome paintings,
often in radiant blues or subtle grays. Built up from
numerous thin layers of different colors, they had a
luminous depth that was compared more than once to the light
installations of James Turrell. Writing in The New York
Times in 2004, Ken Johnson called Mr. de Crignis's work "at
once formally severe and materially luxurious" and noted its
ability to "bridge the gap between the perceptual and the
transcendental."
Mr. de Crignis had his first solo show of paintings at
Galerie Palette in Zurich in 1980 and his first New York
show at the Pamela Auchincloss Gallery in 1995. He had
subsequent exhibitions at the Stark Gallery in 1997 and the
Peter Blum Gallery in 2001 and 2004.
Mr. de Crignis had an early marriage that ended in divorce.
In addition to Mr. Paoletta, he is survived by his
half-sister, Elsie Chiuso of Kempten, Switzerland.
Mr. de Crignis's work is in numerous public collections,
including the Yale University Art Gallery, the Albright-Knox
Art Gallery, the Fogg Art Museum and the Kunsthaus Zürich.