Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 13

Emilio Cruz
Cuban Artist Pastel Drawing African American Emilio Cruz Bonnie & Clyde Painting

About the Item

Emilio Cruz (1938-2004) Bonnie and Clyde Pastel on paper Hand signed lower right Dimensions Framed H 15-7/8" W 18-1/2", Sight H 13-1/2" W 16-1/8" Emilio Antonio Cruz (1938 – 2004) was a Cuban American artist who lived most of his life in New York City. His work is held in several major museums in the United States. Emilio Antonio Cruz was an American Artist of Cuban descent. He was born in the Bronx on March 15, 1938. He studied at the Art Students League of New York with Edwin Dickinson, George Grosz and Frank J. Reilly and at The New School in New York City, and finally at the Seong Moy School of Painting and Graphic Arts in Provincetown, Massachusetts. As a young artist in the 1960s, Cruz was connected with other artists who were applying abstract expressionism concepts to figurative art such as Lester Johnson, Red Grooms, Mimi Gross, Bob Thompson and Jan Muller. He combined human and animal figures with imagery from archaeology and natural history to create disturbing, dreamlike paintings. Cruz received a John Hay Whitney Fellowship and awards from the Joan Mitchell Foundation and from the National Endowment for the Arts. In the late 1968, Emilio and wife Patricia Cruz moved to St. Louis to work with Julius Hemphill and the Black Artists Group. He served as director for the visual arts program, which also included painters Oliver Jackson and Manuel Hughes. In addition to artistic contributions, the couple participated in city-wide civil rights protests and rent strikes. Cruz moved to Chicago and taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago during the 1970s, where he exhibited widely and was represented by the Walter Kelly Gallery. He wrote two plays, Homeostasis: Once More the Scorpion and The Absence Held Fast to Its Presence. These were first performed at the Open Eye Theater in New York in 1981, and later were included in the World Theater Festival in Nancy and Paris, France, and in Italy. In 1982 he returned to New York where he began to exhibit again. In the late 1980s he resumed teaching at the Pratt Institute and at New York University. Harry Rand, Curator of 20th Century Painting and Sculpture at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, described Emilio Cruz as one of the important pioneers of American Modernism of the 1960s for his fusion of Abstract Expressionist art with figuration. Geno Rodriguez, Curator and Executive Director of The Alternative Museum, wrote in 1985, "Emilio Cruz, is a brilliant and impassioned artist whose current paintings are monumental, imbued with intelligence, fury and an apt sense of irony. They reflect the turbulent world within which we live." Geoffrey Jacques wrote in 1990, "Emilio Cruz paints humanity’s essence. Mythology and archeology are the foremost concerns of the painter Emilio Cruz. Dinosaurs, skeletal humans and fossil-like images are used in his work as metaphoric signposts in a consideration of the basic questions of existence." Art historian and curator Paul Staiti wrote in 1997, "Emilio Cruz's Homo sapiens series is a strange and haunting genealogy of the modern soul... What is at stake here more than biopolitical culture, is the remystification of the body and mapping of consciousness ... For all the trauma, explicit and implicit, Cruz's style is masterful, classical, even beautiful." Exhibitions Cruz held his first solo exhibition at the Zabriskie Gallery in New York in 1963. Afterwards his work was included in many group and solo exhibitions, including the Anita Shapolsky Gallery in 1986 and 1991, museum exhibitions at the Studio Museum in Harlem in 1987, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1997. In 1994, Cruz's work was shown as part of the American contingent at the IV Bienal Internacional de Pintura en Cuenca, Ecuador. Other American artists exhibiting at this show were Donald Locke, Philemona Williamson, Whitfield Lovell and Freddy Rodríguez. His last show was I Am Food I Eat the Eater of Food at the Alitash Kebede Gallery in Los Angeles in 2004. Cruz's work is held in many collections including the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Studio Museum in Harlem; the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; the Albright–Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York; and the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut. Emilio Cruz paints in an expressive style inspired by imagined events and the history of Africa and the New World. Paintings by African Americans from the collection of the National Museum of American Art: A Book of Postcards (Washington, D.C.: National Museum of American Art in cooperation with Pomegranate Artbooks, 1991) Awards: John Hay Whitney Foundation Fellowship, 1964 – 1965; Cintas Foundation Fellowship, 1965 – 66. Important exhibitions: (group) Sun Gallery, Provincetown, Mass., 1959, 1960, 1961, 1963; Richard Grey Gallery, Chicago, 1963, 1964; regional exhibition Drawing Society of America, Gallery of Modern Art, New York, 1965; University of North Carolina, 1965; (one-man) Zabriskie Gallery, New York, 1963, 1965. Free Within Ourselves: African-American Artists in the Collection of the National Museum of American Art, 1996. Along with Henry Ossawa Tanner, Elizabeth Catlett, Lois Mailou Jones, Romare Bearden & Robert Thompson. Ten Negro Artists from the United States: First World Festival of Negro Arts, Dakar, Senegal, 1966 along with Barbara Chase, Emilio Cruz, Sam Gilliam, Richard Hunt, Jacob Lawrence, William Majors, Norma Morgan, Robert Reid, Charles White, and Todd Williams.(New York: United States Committee for the First World Festival of Negro Arts, Inc., 1966)
  • Creator:
    Emilio Cruz (1938 - 2004, Cuban, American)
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 15.88 in (40.34 cm)Width: 18.5 in (46.99 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
  • Gallery Location:
    Surfside, FL
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU38210098292
More From This SellerView All
  • Rare Oil Painting Arab Man Bezalel School Jerusalem 1913, Judaica
    By Isaac Lichtenstein 1
    Located in Surfside, FL
    Extremely rare work of art from the early Bezalel School of Boris Schatz in Ottoman Palestine. it depicts an Orientalist Arab Sheik in traditional Headwear. YITSKHOK LIKHTENSHTEYN ...
    Category

    Early 20th Century Post-Impressionist Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Paper, Oil Pastel, Oil

  • One More Time (Black Devil) Outsider Art Painting, Drawing
    By Peter Dean
    Located in Surfside, FL
    Dean was born in 1934 of Jewish parents in a Berlin, Germany, that was falling prey to the Nazis. The family immigrated to New York City in 1938, and Dean was raised in the refugee community in Inwood. Dean's first show (ironically, in retrospect) was given him by the USIA in Brazil. In 1959, he returned to New York to work six months on, six months off in soil engineering and made art in the interims. He tried, and failed, to get into a Tenth Street Gallery. Studying painting at night with Andre Girard at City College pushed him over the edge, and in 1969 he committed himself to painting full time. Artists who impressed him in the '60s were Robert Beauchamp, Lester Johnson, Jan Muller...
    Category

    1980s Expressionist Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

    Materials

    Paper, Oil Pastel, Acrylic

  • The Mean Hippies (Drawing with Rattlesnake Warrior and Red Rebels) Outsider Art
    By Alex O'Neal
    Located in Surfside, FL
    Paper measures 21 X 33 inches Born and raised in Mississippi, Alex O'Neal graduated from Rhode Island School of Design and School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In the Eighties, his formal education overlapped regular visits with Mississippi self-taught artists, including Mary T. Smith, Luster Willis, and Son Ford Thomas. He later immersed himself in art brut collections and European art brut in Switzerland, Germany, and France. His work is also inspired by African-American self-taught outsider art. O'Neal's drawings and paintings have been shown at The Drawing Center, New York; BRIC, Brooklyn; P.S.122, New York; Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca, NY; Woodruff Arts Center, Atlanta; Tennessee Arts Commission, Nashville; Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, MS; Centre d’Art des Pénitents Noirs, Aubagne, France; Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans; Chicago Cultural Center; Ecomuseu, Valls d'Aneu, Spain; Amory Arts Center, West Palm Beach; Huntsville Museum of Art, AL; Rockefeller Art Center, SUNY Fredonia; ART LA; Field Projects, New York; LOG at Lump Gallery, Raleigh, NC; and Linda Warren Projects, Chicago. His work is in volumes 16, 38, and 104 of New American Paintings. His paintings and drawings idiosyncratically depict circumstances that associate Americans, i.e. dysfunction, nature worship, cults, homegrown terrorism, Hollywood, reverence for Native America. There is formal influence from stylization found in Romanesque fresco, early American portrait painting...
    Category

    21st Century and Contemporary Outsider Art Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Oil Pastel, Archival Paper

  • Israeli Judaica Watercolor Gouache Bar Mitzvah Boy Rabbi Painting Russian Artist
    By Ben Zion Magal
    Located in Surfside, FL
    Ben Zion Magal (1908 - 1999) Ben Zion Magal was born in 1908 in Kishinev - Russia and there, years later, graduated from the Art Academy. He arrived to Erertz Israel together with hi...
    Category

    1960s Neo-Expressionist Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Watercolor, Gouache

  • Jerusalem Old City Landscape, Expressionist Judaica Israeli Painting II
    By Andre Elbaz
    Located in Surfside, FL
    In this painting the artist uses gestural brushstrokes, which causes distortion and exaggeration for emotional effect. Andre Elbaz uses as his subject figures walking in old city Jerusalem. André Elbaz (born April 26, 1934, El Jadida, Morocco) is a famous Moroccan painter and filmmaker. Elbaz studied art and theatre in Rabat and Paris from 1950 to 1961. He started painting only at the age of 21, until which age he had been interested mainly in theatre. A few years later, he managed to combine his two passions into a new approach in art-therapy, inventing together with his wife, a psychiatrist, the Pictodrame, which brought him world recognition. His first exhibition, which was very successful, took place in Casablanca in 1961 and earned him an appointment as Professor at the Beaux-Arts school in Casablanca. Years later, in 1976, he exhibited his paintings at the Tel-Aviv Museum. In parallel to his career as a painter, Elbaz is also known as a filmmaker. He produced several short films in France, Canada and the United States. One of them, La nuit n'est jamais complète (The night is never complete), won a prize at the "5th Biennale de Paris in 1967". Among the themes chosen for the many films he produced, there was a short one about the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, as well as a series of drawings entitled Seuls (Alone), with texts written by both Elie Wiesel...
    Category

    20th Century Expressionist Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Gouache, Paper

  • Original German Expressionist Drawing Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Women Dancing
    By Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
    Located in Surfside, FL
    Ernst Ludwig Kirchner ( Germany 1880-1938 ) Expressionist Female Women Dancing Mixed Media on Paper Drawing or Painting Expressionism Dimensions: 20" L 16" H in This bore a sticker from Christies auction house and another collection sticker verso but they have been inadvertently removed. I do have the photo. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880 – 1938) was a German expressionist painter and printmaker and one of the founders of the artists group Die Brücke or "The Bridge", a key group leading to the foundation of Expressionism in 20th-century art. He volunteered for army service in the First World War, but soon suffered a breakdown and was discharged. His work was branded as "Entartete Kunst" or "degenerate" by the Nazis in 1933, and in 1937 more than 600 of his works were sold or destroyed. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner was born in Aschaffenburg, Bavaria. His parents were of Prussian descent and his mother was a descendant of the Huguenots, a fact to which Kirchner often referred. As Kirchner's father searched for a job, the family moved frequently and Kirchner attended schools in Frankfurt and Perlen until his father earned the position of Professor of Paper Sciences at the College of technology in Chemnitz, where Kirchner attended secondary school. Although Kirchner's parents encouraged his artistic career they also wanted him to complete his formal education so in 1901, he began studying architecture at the Königliche Technische Hochschule (royal technical university) of Dresden. The institution provided a wide range of studies in addition to architecture, such as freehand drawing, perspective drawing and the historical study of art. While in attendance, he became close friends with Fritz Bleyl, whom Kirchner met during the first term. They discussed art together and also studied nature, having a radical outlook in common. Kirchner continued studies in Munich from 1903 to 1904, returning to Dresden in 1905 to complete his degree. In 1905, Kirchner, along with Bleyl and two other architecture students, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and Erich Heckel, founded the artists group Die Brücke ("The Bridge") later to include Emil Nolde, Max Pechstein and Otto Mueller. From then on, he committed himself to art. The group aimed to eschew the prevalent traditional academic style and find a new mode of artistic expression, which would form a bridge (hence the name) between the past and the present. They responded both to past artists such as Albrecht Dürer, Matthias Grünewald and Lucas Cranach the Elder, as well as contemporary international avant-garde movements. As part of the affirmation of their national heritage, they revived older media, particularly woodcut or woodblock prints. Kirchner's studio became a venue which overthrew social conventions to allow casual love-making and frequent nudity. Group life-drawing sessions took place using nude models from the social circle, rather than professionals, and choosing quarter-hour poses to encourage spontaneity. In 1911, he moved to Berlin, where he founded a private art school, MIUM-Institut, in collaboration with Max Pechstein with the aim of promulgating "Moderner Unterricht im Malen" (modern teaching of painting). This was not a success and closed the following year, when he also began a relationship with Erna Schilling that lasted the rest of his life. In 1917, at the suggestion of Eberhard Grisebach [de], Helene Spengler invited Kirchner to Davos where he viewed an exhibition of Ferdinand Hodler paintings. "When I was leaving, I thought of Vincent Van Gogh's fate and thought that it would be his as well, sooner or later. Only later will people understand and see how much he has contributed to painting". In 1921 Kirchner visited Zurich at the beginning of May and met the dancer, Nina Hard, whom he invited back to Frauenkirch (despite Erna's objections). Nina Hard would become an important model for Kirchner and would be featured in many of his works. Kirchner began creating designs for carpets which were then woven by Lise Gujer. In 1925, Kirchner became close friends with fellow artist, Albert Müller...
    Category

    Early 20th Century Expressionist Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

    Materials

    Ink, Paper

You May Also Like
  • "Magico momento" by E. Wenk, 2020-21 - Watercolor and Acrylic Paint, Figurative
    By Enzio Wenk
    Located in Bresso, IT
    Complete title: "Magico momento, mi auguro di essere protetto da una donna" Translated title: "Magic moment, I hope to be protected by a woman". Watercolor and acrylic paint on high...
    Category

    2010s Neo-Expressionist Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Paper, Acrylic, Watercolor

  • "Composizione" by E. Wenk, 2020-21 - Watercolor and Red Acrylic Paint, Abstract
    By Enzio Wenk
    Located in Bresso, IT
    Translated title: "Composition". Watercolor and acrylic paint on high-quality cotton paper, which is handmade in Italy. This is part of an album. The price refers to the single dr...
    Category

    2010s Neo-Expressionist Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Paper, Acrylic, Watercolor

  • "Uomo con Fiori" by E. Wenk, 2020-21 - Watercolor and Acrylic Paint, Figurative
    By Enzio Wenk
    Located in Bresso, IT
    Translated title: "Man with flowers". Watercolor on high-quality cotton paper, which is handmade in Italy. This is part of an album. The price refers to the single drawing.
    Category

    2010s Neo-Expressionist Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Watercolor, Acrylic, Paper

  • 1950s "Mark" Oil Pastel and Gouache Figurative Painting NYC Modern Mid Century
    By Donald Stacy
    Located in Arp, TX
    Donald Stacy "Mark" c.1950s Oil pastel and gouache paint on paper 14x17" unframed Unsigned Came from artist's estate Donald Stacy (1925-2011) New Jersey Studied: Newark School of ...
    Category

    Mid-20th Century Modern Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Gouache, Paper, Oil Pastel

  • "Do you need me?"
    Located in VÉNISSIEUX, FR
    Dear art lover, This artwork makes part of my series dedicated to " Women" and in particularly celebrates a special bond and connection between women. This artwork called "Do you...
    Category

    2010s Modern Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Oil Pastel, Watercolor, Archival Paper

  • All Out
    Located in Kansas City, MO
    Lonnie Powell All Out 2009 Pastel on Paper Size: 27x40.5in Frame: 36x50x1.5in Signed and dated by hand COA provided Ref.: 924802-1752 ----------- Tags: Women in Sports, Female Ath...
    Category

    Early 2000s Contemporary Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

    Materials

    Paste, Paper, Oil Pastel

Recently Viewed

View All