Alfonso Ossorio (1916-1990)
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Alfonso Ossorio committed his life to the appreciation and creation of art in its limitless forms. In pursuit of this passion, Ossorio would become connected to a web of important players in the annals of art history which he, in turn, would influence with his own enthusiasm and curiosity for new ways to express creativity. His contributions include not only the body of work he produced and culturally significant communications and documents, but also the results of support and encouragement he provided to fellow artists and an attitude of acceptance rather than exclusion in the art community.
Born the fourth of six boys to his parents Maria Paz Yangco and Miguel Jose Ossorio in 1916, on the island of Luzon in Manilla, Alfonso Angel Yangco Ossorio was of Hispanic, Filipino and Chinese heritage. Taking a very early interest in art, he was not yet eight years old and already getting in trouble for cutting images out of his parents’ magazines for his personal scrapbook. He attended St. Richard’s Catholic Prep School in England until his family relocated to America, where he continued primary school at Portsmouth Priory in Rhode Island. Ossorio knew and announced early on that he wanted to be an artist, but his family disapproved and insisted he attend college to be prepared for a more viable career. As a compromise, he joined the Arts program at Harvard University in 1934, just one year after officially becoming a U.S. citizen. While at Harvard, Ossorio practiced set design with the school’s theater group, and during his summers abroad he studied some printmaking and engraving. Although he graduated in 1938 with a bachelor’s degree in Arts, his studies had focused solely on art history and critical analysis of classical art. This left him craving a deeper understanding of actual technique, so Ossorio went on immediately to enroll at the Rhode Island School of Design where one of his favorite instructors, John Howard Benson, was also teaching. Benson, a strong early influence on Ossorio, was a well-known calligrapher and inscription carver who would introduce Ossorio to Eric Gill and Graham Carey. This group both strengthened Ossorio’s knowledge of traditional art and also caused the young artist to consider the broader spectrum of art in the world. He found comfort and inspiration in the Peabody Museum, where there was no sharp contrast in presenting historical artifacts and fine art. There, he felt a higher appreciation was allowed than anywhere else he’d been for the artistic merit of the primitive arts, and that such recognition was vital to truly accepting the full scale of artistic endeavors.
After nine months at the School of Design, Ossorio spent a winter in Boston working on a commissioned piece for the Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Manhattan. The following year, 1940, he married Bridget Hubrecht, who was seeking solace from the war in Europe (a marriage that would only last about a year) and the newlyweds moved to Taos, New Mexico. They spent a lot of time on Frieda Lawrence’s ranch north of Taos, which attracted many artists including Andy and Marina Dasburg, Howard Cook and Ward Lockwood. Ossorio was steadily producing new art there, including a charming portrait of the ranch owner. In 1941 Betty Parsons visited the ranch and invited Ossorio to show in her newly opened Wakefield Gallery in New York City. It was a small space in the basement of the Wakefield Bookshop on 55th Street (between Park and Madison), but Ossorio’s first solo exhibit of superreal watercolor portraits and typical New Mexico subject matter was fairly well received. He held a second show as well, which ended the night before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Ossorio was moved to volunteer his service to the military the next day. Unfortunately, he was struck by a car and spent a year recovering from this accident: but from 1943 until 1946 Ossorio served as a medical illustrator in the U.S. Army.
During the war, Ossorio’s old pal Betty Parsons stepped into an important role as one of the only gallery owners willing to promote the daring contemporary artists fleeing Europe and the New York artists indulging in the novel creations of abstract expressionism. After his service, Ossorio gladly returned to this bold new New York City art scene in time to witness and partake in this modern art movement. He was pleased to become a collector of Jackson Pollock’s after coming across his work at one of Betty’s shows. Pollock and Ossorio became fast friends, exchanging influence as they each explored new territory in creation. Subsequently, Ossorio also made friends with Clyfford Still, Jean Dubuffet, Mark Rothko, Lee Krasner and Tony Smith at this time. In late 1949, Ossorio returned to the Philippines to decorate a newly built church that was uniquely connected to his family, The Chapel of St. Joseph the Worker. After devoting nearly a year to this project that was religiously themed but freely designed (and, in his own words, pretty fierce), he and Pollock worked together with Smith (an architect before becoming a sculptor) on a model and proposal for a highly stylized church. Unfortunately, despite their brilliant designs they were unable to obtain funding and support for the project to be realized.
For nearly two years in the early 1950’s, Ossorio lived in Paris with his new life partner, professional dancer Ted Dragon, whom he’d met three years before. They spent much of their time there with Dubuffet, even taking trips together to Holland and Belgium to visit patrons. Dubuffet introduced Ossorio to Michel Tapié, who arranged a solo exhibition for him at the Studio Paul Facchetti in Paris, featuring a large number of wax and watercolor drawings he’d completed while in the Philippines. At the conclusion of this extended stay in France, Ossorio and Dragon moved into their newly purchased 60-acre estate in East Hampton that was known as “The Creeks”. Some of their neighbors included Larry and Rosanne Larkin, in charge of the East Hampton Guild Hall exhibits. Ossorio grew quickly attached to this new home and the Hampton area, and would expend much creative energy adorning the interior with art and artifacts, including a significant collection of Dubuffet’s Art Brut series. Together with Dragon, Ossorio cultivated their yard with a wide variety of plant and tree species to such a fantastic degree that enthusiasts dubbed it “The Eighth Wonder of the Horticulture World”.
In 1957, Ossorio and compatriots Elizabeth Parker and John Little opened their own gallery in East Hampton, Signa Gallery, to exhibit local contemporary artists. Although it was only open for four years, Signa Gallery showed prominent artists from the New York community, including De Kooning, Marca-Relli, Kline and Guston. Buckminster Fuller delivered a moving lecture at the gallery, and Time magazine even featured one exhibition, The Human Image.
The paintings Ossorio had been producing throughout his early career were primarily watercolors, and then he transitioned to oils. While using oils and impasto, Ossorio would often press items into the paint. Eventually, he decided to fully incorporate the meshing of objects into collages or assemblages- though he preferred to call these works “congregations”. Often utilizing repeating items such as animal bones, driftwood, glass eyes and pearls, it was his congregations that rocketed his presence in the general public’s view. Many of these signature pieces were included in the Museum of Modern Art’s The Art of Assemblage in 1961. That same year, he also held one-man shows at the Gallerie Stadler in Paris, at Cordier & Warren Gallery in NYC and at Gallery Cordier-Stadler in Germany as well. With a fantastic supporting network and a unique voice in the art scene, Ossorio had found his audience. He would go on to show his work at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Contemporary Art Museum of Houston, and several exhibitions in Japan. In 1980, Judith Wolfe curated a one-man show covering 40 years of Ossorio’s work at his neighborhood Guild Hall Museum.
Ossorio continued evolving his approach to art, making intaglio and monoprints with Hudson River Press in the early to mid eighties, and then taking to basic drawing when recovering from heart trouble. After a triple bypass surgery, he produced his “Recovery Series” of enchanting graphite on paper. A show honoring the Signa Gallery was held at the Guild Hall Museum in 1990, which brought a smile to Ossorio’s face. Unfortunately, later that year, on December 5, Ossorio succumbed to a ruptured aneurysm at the age of 74. Dragon, his partner of forty years, established a foundation in his name that provided a gallery space for visitors to view, discuss and appreciate Ossorio’s life’s work and also served to promote public access to Ossorio’s lifetime communications and documented ideas.
Some Affiliated Schools, Galleries and Museums:
Park Christian Bros. School, Bath
St. Richard’s Catholic Prep School, England
Portsmouth Priory (now Portsmouth Abbey School), Rhode Island
Harvard University
Rhode Island School of Design
Wakefield Gallery, New York City
Signa Gallery in East Hampton (Cofounder)
East Hampton Guild Hall
Whitney Museum of American Art
Cordier & Ekstrom Gallery, NYC
Berkeley Center
Bruce Museum, Greenwich CT
Renwick Gallery, National Collection of Fine Arts, Washington, D.C.
Seattle Art Museum
Albertina Museum Vienna, Austria
Boymans-Von Beuingen Museum, Rotterdam, Holland
Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY
Centre George Pompidou, Paris, France
The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan
Some Known Works
Young Moses, 1941 (ink on paper)
Dunstan Thompson, 1942 (watercolor, gouache and ink on paper)
Loafers, 1945 (watercolor and ink on paper)
Birth II, 1949 (ink, wax, watercolor and gouache on paperboard)
Tattooed Couple, 1950 (watercolor, ink, and gouache on paper)
Breaking Circles, 1960 (congregation of mixed media on panel)
Thee and Thy Shadow, 1961 (plastic and various materials on masonite)
Circle #3, 1962 (congregation of mixed media on panel)
White Flame, 1983 (gouache, ink and encaustic on paperboard)
Born the fourth of six boys to his parents Maria Paz Yangco and Miguel Jose Ossorio in 1916, on the island of Luzon in Manilla, Alfonso Angel Yangco Ossorio was of Hispanic, Filipino and Chinese heritage. Taking a very early interest in art, he was not yet eight years old and already getting in trouble for cutting images out of his parents’ magazines for his personal scrapbook. He attended St. Richard’s Catholic Prep School in England until his family relocated to America, where he continued primary school at Portsmouth Priory in Rhode Island. Ossorio knew and announced early on that he wanted to be an artist, but his family disapproved and insisted he attend college to be prepared for a more viable career. As a compromise, he joined the Arts program at Harvard University in 1934, just one year after officially becoming a U.S. citizen. While at Harvard, Ossorio practiced set design with the school’s theater group, and during his summers abroad he studied some printmaking and engraving. Although he graduated in 1938 with a bachelor’s degree in Arts, his studies had focused solely on art history and critical analysis of classical art. This left him craving a deeper understanding of actual technique, so Ossorio went on immediately to enroll at the Rhode Island School of Design where one of his favorite instructors, John Howard Benson, was also teaching. Benson, a strong early influence on Ossorio, was a well-known calligrapher and inscription carver who would introduce Ossorio to Eric Gill and Graham Carey. This group both strengthened Ossorio’s knowledge of traditional art and also caused the young artist to consider the broader spectrum of art in the world. He found comfort and inspiration in the Peabody Museum, where there was no sharp contrast in presenting historical artifacts and fine art. There, he felt a higher appreciation was allowed than anywhere else he’d been for the artistic merit of the primitive arts, and that such recognition was vital to truly accepting the full scale of artistic endeavors.
After nine months at the School of Design, Ossorio spent a winter in Boston working on a commissioned piece for the Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Manhattan. The following year, 1940, he married Bridget Hubrecht, who was seeking solace from the war in Europe (a marriage that would only last about a year) and the newlyweds moved to Taos, New Mexico. They spent a lot of time on Frieda Lawrence’s ranch north of Taos, which attracted many artists including Andy and Marina Dasburg, Howard Cook and Ward Lockwood. Ossorio was steadily producing new art there, including a charming portrait of the ranch owner. In 1941 Betty Parsons visited the ranch and invited Ossorio to show in her newly opened Wakefield Gallery in New York City. It was a small space in the basement of the Wakefield Bookshop on 55th Street (between Park and Madison), but Ossorio’s first solo exhibit of superreal watercolor portraits and typical New Mexico subject matter was fairly well received. He held a second show as well, which ended the night before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Ossorio was moved to volunteer his service to the military the next day. Unfortunately, he was struck by a car and spent a year recovering from this accident: but from 1943 until 1946 Ossorio served as a medical illustrator in the U.S. Army.
During the war, Ossorio’s old pal Betty Parsons stepped into an important role as one of the only gallery owners willing to promote the daring contemporary artists fleeing Europe and the New York artists indulging in the novel creations of abstract expressionism. After his service, Ossorio gladly returned to this bold new New York City art scene in time to witness and partake in this modern art movement. He was pleased to become a collector of Jackson Pollock’s after coming across his work at one of Betty’s shows. Pollock and Ossorio became fast friends, exchanging influence as they each explored new territory in creation. Subsequently, Ossorio also made friends with Clyfford Still, Jean Dubuffet, Mark Rothko, Lee Krasner and Tony Smith at this time. In late 1949, Ossorio returned to the Philippines to decorate a newly built church that was uniquely connected to his family, The Chapel of St. Joseph the Worker. After devoting nearly a year to this project that was religiously themed but freely designed (and, in his own words, pretty fierce), he and Pollock worked together with Smith (an architect before becoming a sculptor) on a model and proposal for a highly stylized church. Unfortunately, despite their brilliant designs they were unable to obtain funding and support for the project to be realized.
For nearly two years in the early 1950’s, Ossorio lived in Paris with his new life partner, professional dancer Ted Dragon, whom he’d met three years before. They spent much of their time there with Dubuffet, even taking trips together to Holland and Belgium to visit patrons. Dubuffet introduced Ossorio to Michel Tapié, who arranged a solo exhibition for him at the Studio Paul Facchetti in Paris, featuring a large number of wax and watercolor drawings he’d completed while in the Philippines. At the conclusion of this extended stay in France, Ossorio and Dragon moved into their newly purchased 60-acre estate in East Hampton that was known as “The Creeks”. Some of their neighbors included Larry and Rosanne Larkin, in charge of the East Hampton Guild Hall exhibits. Ossorio grew quickly attached to this new home and the Hampton area, and would expend much creative energy adorning the interior with art and artifacts, including a significant collection of Dubuffet’s Art Brut series. Together with Dragon, Ossorio cultivated their yard with a wide variety of plant and tree species to such a fantastic degree that enthusiasts dubbed it “The Eighth Wonder of the Horticulture World”.
In 1957, Ossorio and compatriots Elizabeth Parker and John Little opened their own gallery in East Hampton, Signa Gallery, to exhibit local contemporary artists. Although it was only open for four years, Signa Gallery showed prominent artists from the New York community, including De Kooning, Marca-Relli, Kline and Guston. Buckminster Fuller delivered a moving lecture at the gallery, and Time magazine even featured one exhibition, The Human Image.
The paintings Ossorio had been producing throughout his early career were primarily watercolors, and then he transitioned to oils. While using oils and impasto, Ossorio would often press items into the paint. Eventually, he decided to fully incorporate the meshing of objects into collages or assemblages- though he preferred to call these works “congregations”. Often utilizing repeating items such as animal bones, driftwood, glass eyes and pearls, it was his congregations that rocketed his presence in the general public’s view. Many of these signature pieces were included in the Museum of Modern Art’s The Art of Assemblage in 1961. That same year, he also held one-man shows at the Gallerie Stadler in Paris, at Cordier & Warren Gallery in NYC and at Gallery Cordier-Stadler in Germany as well. With a fantastic supporting network and a unique voice in the art scene, Ossorio had found his audience. He would go on to show his work at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Contemporary Art Museum of Houston, and several exhibitions in Japan. In 1980, Judith Wolfe curated a one-man show covering 40 years of Ossorio’s work at his neighborhood Guild Hall Museum.
Ossorio continued evolving his approach to art, making intaglio and monoprints with Hudson River Press in the early to mid eighties, and then taking to basic drawing when recovering from heart trouble. After a triple bypass surgery, he produced his “Recovery Series” of enchanting graphite on paper. A show honoring the Signa Gallery was held at the Guild Hall Museum in 1990, which brought a smile to Ossorio’s face. Unfortunately, later that year, on December 5, Ossorio succumbed to a ruptured aneurysm at the age of 74. Dragon, his partner of forty years, established a foundation in his name that provided a gallery space for visitors to view, discuss and appreciate Ossorio’s life’s work and also served to promote public access to Ossorio’s lifetime communications and documented ideas.
Some Affiliated Schools, Galleries and Museums:
Park Christian Bros. School, Bath
St. Richard’s Catholic Prep School, England
Portsmouth Priory (now Portsmouth Abbey School), Rhode Island
Harvard University
Rhode Island School of Design
Wakefield Gallery, New York City
Signa Gallery in East Hampton (Cofounder)
East Hampton Guild Hall
Whitney Museum of American Art
Cordier & Ekstrom Gallery, NYC
Berkeley Center
Bruce Museum, Greenwich CT
Renwick Gallery, National Collection of Fine Arts, Washington, D.C.
Seattle Art Museum
Albertina Museum Vienna, Austria
Boymans-Von Beuingen Museum, Rotterdam, Holland
Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY
Centre George Pompidou, Paris, France
The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan
Some Known Works
Young Moses, 1941 (ink on paper)
Dunstan Thompson, 1942 (watercolor, gouache and ink on paper)
Loafers, 1945 (watercolor and ink on paper)
Birth II, 1949 (ink, wax, watercolor and gouache on paperboard)
Tattooed Couple, 1950 (watercolor, ink, and gouache on paper)
Breaking Circles, 1960 (congregation of mixed media on panel)
Thee and Thy Shadow, 1961 (plastic and various materials on masonite)
Circle #3, 1962 (congregation of mixed media on panel)
White Flame, 1983 (gouache, ink and encaustic on paperboard)