Francis Hyman Criss (1901 - 1973) was an American painter. Criss's style is associated with the American Precisionists like

Charles Demuth Charles Henry Buckius Demuth (November 8, 1883 – October 23, 1935) was an American painter who specialized in watercolors and turned to oils late in his career, developing a style of painting known as Precisionism. "Search the history of Ameri ...

and his friend

Charles Sheeler Charles Sheeler (July 16, 1883 – May 7, 1965) was an American artist known for his Precisionist paintings, commercial photography, and the avant-garde film, ''Manhatta'', which he made in collaboration with Paul Strand. Sheeler is recognized ...

Biography

Criss was born in 1901 in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

and immigrated with his family at age four. He attended the

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is a museum and private art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.Art Students League of New York The Art Students League of New York is an art school at 215 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists. Although artists may stu ...

and the

Barnes Foundation The Barnes Foundation is an art collection and educational institution promoting the appreciation of art and horticulture. Originally in Merion, the art collection moved in 2012 to a new building on Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia, Pen ...

, and he took private classes with

Jan Matulka Jan Matulka (7 November 1890 – 25 June 1972) was a Czech-American modern artist originally from Bohemia. Matulka's style ranged from Abstract expressionism to landscapes, sometimes in the same day. He has directly influenced artists like Do ...

. In addition to doing work for the U.S. Government under the New Deal, and contributing a mural for the

Williamsburg Housing Project The Williamsburg Houses, originally called the Ten Eyck Houses, (pronounced ) is a public housing complex built and operated by the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn. It consists of 20 buil ...

in Brooklyn for the

Federal Art Project The Federal Art Project (1935–1943) was a New Deal program to fund the visual arts in the United States. Under national director Holger Cahill, it was one of five Federal Project Number One projects sponsored by the Works Progress Administrati ...

, Criss taught at the leftist

American Artists School The American Artists School was a progressive independent art school in New York City associated with socialism and the American Radical movement. The school was founded in April 1936 at 131 West 14th Street, upon the dissolution of the John Re ...

in the 1930s. His pupils there included

Ad Reinhardt Adolph Dietrich Friedrich Reinhardt (December 24, 1913 – August 30, 1967) was an abstract painter active in New York for more than three decades. He was a member of the American Abstract Artists (AAA) and part of the movement center ...

. He also held teaching positions at numerous other institutions, including the Albright Museum School, Buffalo; the

Art Students League The Art Students League of New York is an art school at American Fine Arts Society, 215 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists ...

; the

New School for Social Research The New School for Social Research (NSSR) is a graduate-level educational institution that is one of the divisions of The New School in New York City, United States. The university was founded in 1919 as a home for progressive era thinkers. NSSR ...

; and the

School of Visual Arts The School of Visual Arts New York City (SVA NYC) is a private for-profit art school in New York City. It was founded in 1947 and is a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design. History This school was started by ...

.Tsujimoto (1982). p. 184. Criss was awarded a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

in 1934. The work from his best-known years, the 1930s and 1940s, is characterized by imagery of the urban environment, such as elevated subway tracks, skyscrapers, streets, and bridges. Criss rendered these subjects with a streamlined, abstracted style, devoid of human figures, that led him to be associated with the

Precisionism Precisionism was a modernist art movement that emerged in the United States after World War I. Influenced by Cubism, Purism, and Futurism, Precisionist artists reduced subjects to their essential geometric shapes, eliminated detail, and often u ...

movement. With distorted perspectives and dream-like juxtapositions, as in ''Jefferson Market Courthouse'' (1935), these empty cityscapes also suggest the influence of

Surrealism Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to l ...

. A turn towards more commercial work later in his career—including a November 1942 cover for

Fortune Magazine ''Fortune'' is an American multinational business magazine headquartered in New York City. It is published by Fortune Media Group Holdings, owned by Thai businessman Chatchaval Jiaravanon. The publication was founded by Henry Luce in 1929. The ...

—led to a decline in his reputation. Criss died in 1973 in New York City. HIs work is in the collections of the

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...

, the

Detroit Institute of Arts The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), located in Midtown Detroit, Michigan, has one of the list of largest art museums, largest and most significant art collections in the United States. With over 100 galleries, it covers with a major renovation a ...

, the

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin Fr ...

, the

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds o ...

, and the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), ...

. In 2021 Criss' painting ''Alma Sewing'' was featured in an essay by the art critic

Sebastian Smee Sebastian Smee is an Australian-born Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic for the ''Washington Post''. Education and career Educated at St Peter's College, Adelaide, Smee graduated from the University of Sydney with an Honours degree in fine arts ...

in the Washington Post. Smee considers ''Alma Sewing'' to be Criss' finest work. The painting in the collection of the

High Museum of Art The High Museum of Art (colloquially the High) is the largest museum for visual art in the Southeastern United States. Located in Atlanta, Georgia (on Peachtree Street in Midtown, the city's arts district), the High is 312,000 square feet (28, ...

in Atlanta, Georgia.

References

External links

images of Criss' work
from the Whitney Museum of American Art
images of Criss' work
on ArtNet
Online Monograph
{{DEFAULTSORT:Criss, Francis 1901 births 1973 deaths 20th-century American painters American male painters Art Students League of New York alumni Precisionism Federal Art Project artists English emigrants to the United States 20th-century American male artists