Composition VIII, 1977

Conrad Marca-Relli  

Conrad Marca-Relli was an American artist who belonged to the early generation of New York School Abstract Expressionist represented by Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Marca-Relli and others became a leading art movement of the postwar era. Following a period of painting Surrealist inspired imagery, Marca-Relli made a critical breakthrough with large-scale collage paintings that frequently drew inspiration from the human form to create abstract compositions of interlocking curves and angles.

He is considered to be one of the first artists to raise the art of collage to a status comparable with monumental painting, which paved the way for the large "combine paintings" of the Neo-Dada artists of the 1960s. Marca-Relli took a constructive approach to image making, building up surfaces by cutting out and applying shapes to canvas or metal supports. Contours and shapes in his work were based on imagined architectural themes or figure arrangements but were deliberately left ambiguous.

Marca-Relli maintained strong links to Europe throughout his life and did not wish to break from the traditions of the "Old World" unlike many of his contemporaries. He lived and worked in France, Spain, and Italy and looked to European painters from the Renaissance, Cubism, and metaphysical movements for inspiration.