Rudolf de Crignis, Painter With A Distinct Abstract Style, 58

[DGH]

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Rudolf de Crignis, 58, Painter With a Distinct Abstract Style, Dies

By ROBERTA SMITH

Rudolf de Crignis, a New York abstract painter, died last Saturday
[December 23, 2006] in Manhattan [New York]. 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.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/30/arts/design/30crignis.html?ref=obituaries