Overview
"I make sculpture in stone . . . in any material, because it excites me to make sculpture. It is my life, it is my way to talk . . . to express myself. How should I explain anything further about it? I explain myself completely in my work. Instead of words, I use forms. The forms are my total expression . . ."
—de Creeft, July 1972
Jose De Creeft is one of the finest international sculptors of the twentieth century who worked in a direct carve manner in stone. He had a strong style of his own but one that relates to such American sculptors as Flanagan, Laurent and Zorach. However, De Creeft had a farther reach than just being an American sculptor, as he was Spanish born and throughout his career exhibited in avant-garde venues in Europe with Lipchitz, Despiau and Bourdelle to name a few. He formed friendships with Picasso and Gris who saw talent in his work, during the years he lived in France. It is significant to note that De Creeft sought the advice of Rodin who urged him to enroll at the Academie Julien in Paris. They had a competition for a figure in half-size and De Creeft won the First Prize, the first of many awards to come. In 1942 he won the First Prize at the Metropolitan Museum competition Artists for Victory. He taught at the Art Students League in New York and is represented in many museum collections.
Memberships
American Academy of Arts and Letters
Artists Equity Association
Audubon Artist
Federation of Modern Painters and Sculptors
National Academy of Design
National Sculpture Society
Sculptors Guild
Selected Exhibitions
Salon dâAutomne, Paris, 1919, 1920-1927, 1930
International Exhibition, Paris, 1925
Seattle (Washington) Art Institute, 1929 (solo)
Feragil Galleries, New York, 1929 (solo)
Arts Club of Chicago, 1930 (solo)
Fifty-Six Street Gallery, New York 1930 (solo)
Brooklyn Museum, 1930, 1936, 1944, 1966
Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois, 1932, 1935, 1939, 1951
Philadelphia Art Alliance, 1933 (solo)
New School for Social Research, New York, 1933 (solo), 1934-1939, 1957-1965
Georgette Passsedoit Gallery, New York, 1936, 1938, 1939, 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943, 1944, 1945, 1946, 1947, 1949 (solo)
Sculptorsâ Guild, New York, 1938, 1939, 1941, 1948, 1949, 1957, 1959, 1961, 1963, 1965, 1966
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1939, 1942-1944, 1946-1948, 1953, 1956, 1958, 1960Â (solo), 1961 (retrospective)
Philadelphia Museum of art, Sculpture Annual, 1940
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Artists for Victory, 1942, 1952, 1958
National Academy of Design, New York, 1942
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Annual, 1942, 1943-1947, 1952-1955, 1957, 1960, 1962, 1962
St. Paul (Minnesota) Gallery and School of Art, 1943 (solo)
College of William and Mary, Virginia, 1944 (solo)
Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio, 1947
Norton Gallery of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida, 1949 (solo)
Fairmount Park Art Association, Philadelphia, International Art Show, 1949
Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts, 1949
Museum of Modern Art, Sao Paulo, Brazil, 1951
Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, New York 1951
Museum of Modern Art, New York, Sculpture of the 20th Century, 1953
The Contemporaries, New York, 1956, 1958, 1959, 1962, 1964, 1966 (solo)
Southern Vermont Art Center, Manchester, Vermont, 1958 (solo)
Ford Foundation Retrospective Traveling Exhibition, 1960-1961 (solo)
State College of Indiana, Indiana, Pennsylvania, 1960 (solo)
Allentown (Pennsylvania) Art Museum, 1960 (solo)
Roberson Memorial Center, Binghamton, NY 1960 (solo)
Columbus (Ohio) Gallery of Fine Arts, 1960 (solo)
Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, North Carolina, 1960 (solo)
Detroit Institute of Fine Arts, Second Biennial of American Painting and Sculpture, 1960
Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, 1961 (solo)
Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 1961 (solo)
Brooks Memorial Art Gallery, Memphis, Tennessee, 1961 (solo)
Saginaw Museum, Saginaw, Michigan, 1961 (solo)
Museum of Fine Arts, University of Virginia, 1961 (solo)
Eastern Tennessee State College, Johnson City, Tennessee, 1961 (solo)
University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, 1961 (solo)
Howard University, Washington, D.C., 1961 (solo)
Whitney Museum of American Art, 1961 (retrospective)
Louis Alexander Gallery, New York, 1962 (solo)
Baltimore Museum of Art, 1967
Kennedy Galleries, New York, 1970, 1971 (solo)
Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, Spain, 1980
National Museum of Art, Washington D.C., 1983
Museums and Public Collections
Arts Students League
Boca Raton Museum of Art, Florida
Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York
Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio
Denver Art Museum, Colorado
Edwin A Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita, Kansas
Fairmount Park Art Association, Philadelphia
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.
Kresge Art Museum, East Lansing, Michigan
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, New York
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Museum of the City of New York
Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn Harbor, New York
Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, New York
New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, New Jersey
Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Roland T. Murdock Collection, Wichita art Museum, Kansas
Sara Roby Foundation Collection, Washington D.C.
Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln, Nebraska
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.
State University of New York, New Paltz, New York
University of Arizona Museum of Art, Tucson, Arizona
University of Puerto Rico
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York