William Crozier

William Crozier was born in Glasgow in 1930 and educated at the Glasgow School of Art. He spent time in Paris and Dublin before settling in London, where he quickly gained a reputation as the 1950s equivalent of a Young British Artist through the early success and notoriety of his exhibitions of assemblages and paintings. This is the first major monograph on his work.

Profoundly affected by post-war existential philosophy, throughout his life Crozier has allied himself and his work consciously with European art and thought. Early in his career he developed a highly personalized vision of nature, which in the 1960s and 1970s incorporated skeletal figures, making 'art that is as a razor slash' which ran counter to the prevailing tastes in abstraction and Pop-art imagery of the time.

Crozier has exhibited widely in London, Glasgow, Dublin and Continental Europe. From the 1980s, when he set up studios in Ireland and the UK, his painting of the landscape has blossomed with an extraordinary radiance and confidence. Then, as now, his landscapes and still-lifes use sumptuous colour to engineer the emotional intensity of the paintings. He remains concerned with developing the language of figurative painting.

This book is the first to give substantial critical attention to an artist well known within the UK and Irish art worlds, and gives new insights into the history of figurative painting in Britain. It provides a detailed survey of Crozier's wide-ranging work over the last fifty years, placing it within wider European traditions as well as relating it to developments in Irish, Scottish and English art. Crozier is a formidable colourist, and the critical texts are accompanied by extensive reproductions of the artist's work in colour. The book will be widely welcomed by collectors and devotees of the artist's work, students of modern art, and art lovers in general.

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Reviews

'A treat for the senses.' The Spectator

'Combining insightful contributions by S B Kennedy, Philip Vann and Katharine Crouan, with an abundance of high quality reproductions, this book is a fascinating read for both admirers of Crozier's work and those interested in the wider history of 20th century Irish and British art.' Irish Arts Review 2007 'The textual references and notes by its editors are very good indeed ... The excellent colour plates, fascinating photographs and overall design and layout enables the reader to consider and fill in details which have been lacking hitherto ... this is a terrific account of a painter's life to date with solid information and opinions'. Irish Arts Review 2007

'the high quality colour reproductions throughout this informatively written publication does full justice to the work of this distinguished artist'. Galleries Magazine 2008

'The literary and biographic details in Vann's account are trumped by Katharine Crouan's incisive and no-nonsense commentary on the paintings ... her writing ... is lucid, crisp and pertinent ... each section is followed by several pages of lavish illustrations [Crouan] also contributes a full chronology, a detailed bibliography and an exhibition list, which rounds off this definitive statement on a good artist.' The Art Book 2008

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