Rick Prol (born 1958) is an American visual artist who came to the foray during the Neo-Expressionism,

Street Art Street art is visual art created in public locations for public visibility. It has been associated with the terms "independent art", "post-graffiti", "neo-graffiti" and guerrilla art. Street art has evolved from the early forms of defiant graff ...

, and

Graffiti Graffiti (plural; singular ''graffiti'' or ''graffito'', the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from s ...

art movements which first took hold in and around the

East Village, Manhattan The East Village is a neighborhood on the East Side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is roughly defined as the area east of the Bowery and Third Avenue, between 14th Street on the north and Houston Street on the south. The East Village ...

in the 1980s. The style of Prol's work can be compared to

German expressionism German Expressionism () consisted of several related creative movements in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin during the 1920s. These developments were part of a larger Expressionist movement in north and central ...

. Art writer Anthony Haden-Guest has described Prol's works as darkly

cartoon A cartoon is a type of visual art that is typically drawn, frequently animated, in an unrealistic or semi-realistic style. The specific meaning has evolved over time, but the modern usage usually refers to either: an image or series of imag ...

y. Prol received his B.F.A. from

Cooper Union The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (Cooper Union) is a private college at Cooper Square in New York City. Peter Cooper founded the institution in 1859 after learning about the government-supported École Polytechnique in ...

in 1980. He was a friend of Jean Michel Basquiat and helped him with his artwork in the studio. Martha Schwendener, writing in the

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

, makes light of this and Prol's artistic output in her review of the show ''Circa 1985'' at the

Hudson Valley The Hudson Valley (also known as the Hudson River Valley) comprises the valley of the Hudson River and its adjacent communities in the U.S. state of New York. The region stretches from the Capital District including Albany and Troy south to ...

Center for Contemporary Art stating that "Interestingly, there are no paintings by Mr. Basquiat, who died of a drug overdose in 1988, in ''Circa 1986'' but Mr. Prol's large canvas, ''I Have This Cat'' (1985) is an apt surrogate, complete with a primitive figure set against a bleak

cityscape In the visual arts, a cityscape (urban landscape) is an artistic representation, such as a painting, drawing, print or photograph, of the physical aspects of a city or urban area. It is the urban equivalent of a landscape. ''Townscape'' i ...

marked with

graffiti Graffiti (plural; singular ''graffiti'' or ''graffito'', the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from s ...

like scrawls. In 1984 Prol's work was included in the exhibition '' Neo-Expressionists'' at the The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in

Ridgefield, Connecticut Ridgefield is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. Situated in the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains, the 300-year-old community had a population of 25,033 at the 2020 census. The town center, which was formerly a borough, ...

. In 2021 Prol's work was the subject of a solo show at the James Fuentes gallery. Also in 2021 Prol had a solo show in

Seoul Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the Capital city, capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the North Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea ...

at the Leeahn gallery. In 2024 his work was included in the exhibition ''Urban Art Evolution'' at the Nassau County Museum of Art (curated by Christopher Pusey) and then in the corresponding exhibition ''Boyz from the Museum'' (curated by Loni Efron) at the Ilon Gallery in

Harlem, Manhattan Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater Harle ...

.
Boyz from the Museum

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Prol, Rick 1958 births American painters Living people