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Fenton Gallery: William Crozier in West Cork
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William Crozier at The Warren Gallery, Casteltownshend in association with The Fenton Gallery
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The Warren Gallery at Castletownshend is proud to present this exhibition of work by one of Ireland’s foremost artists, William Crozier, in association with the Fenton Gallery, Cork.
The exhibition celebrates a double 21st anniversary. 1983 was the year that Fergus O’Mahony took over the reins at Mary Ann’s, transforming it into one of West Cork’s most celebrated bar/restaurants. It is also 21 years since William Crozier took up residence in Kilcoe, near Skibbereen. Though Crozier has been a visitor to West Cork for the past 50 years, the period since 1983, when he established a home and studio in West Cork, has been a period of intense creativity and development for this international artist. This small exhibition celebrates the artist, his achievement and the location of West Cork, which provides an ongoing source of inspiration.
The Warren Gallery exhibition is a personal selection by the artist of watercolours and oils. The subjects are landscapes and still life paintings that span the period from 1983 to the present. Few of the works have been exhibited prior to this exhibition.
In his paintings William Crozier creates an abstracted form of nature in which the human presence is very strong. His landscapes are rarely topographical, despite Crozier’s frequent use of West Cork place-names in the titles. Yet the paintings capture the essence and look of the landscape in ways that will be immediately recognisable to the visitor to West Cork. The artist has written about painting the Irish landscape that he must “ Tell the truth. Say it simply”. Crozier’s paintings, based on the coast and townlands between Crosshaven and Rosscarbery are unmistakable for their vibrant colours and energetic brushwork, contained in a taut, formal composition.
He brings these same qualities to his still-life paintings, which are invariably taken from a subject near to hand in the home. Crozier has written “The still life can be seen in the same category as chamber music, the jazz quartet, the short poem or the songs of Mahler or Gershwin.”
William Crozier was born in Glasgow in 1930 and educated at the Glasgow School of Art between 1949 and 1953. On graduating he moved to London where he established his reputation at the forefront of his contemporaries through solo exhibitions at the ICA, Drian, Tooth, Serpentine, Scottish and Bruton Galleries. From the mid-1950s onwards, Crozier spent long periods living in Dublin and Paris, followed by a period in southern Spain, which was to prove central to his development as an artist. He has represented the UK and Ireland overseas, and has been awarded the Premio Lissone. In 1991 the Crawford Art Gallery Cork and the Royal Hibernian Academy curated a large retrospective of his work. He was elected to Aosdana in 1992 and is an honorary member of the Royal Hibernian Academy. Crozier’s work can be seen in the national and private collections in the UK and Ireland, as well as in the national galleries of Canada, Poland and Australia and major corporate collections such as the Allied Irish Banks and BNP Paribas.
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- Autumn
Watercolour and conte crayon
11.5 x 19.5inches
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- Still Life
Watercolour and conte crayon
2002
11 x 15inches
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- Still Life
Watercolour and conte crayon
2002
11 x 15inches
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- Still Life
Watercolour and conte crayon
2002
11 x 15inches
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