José de Creeft Spanish - American, 1884-1982

Ecstasy
Ecstasy
Ecstasy
Ecstasy
Ecstasy
Ecstasy
Ecstasy, 1956
Alabaster
14 3/4 x 11 1/2 x 10 inches
Signed: J de Creeft (rear)
$ 22,000.00
Inquire/Make an Offer
View further details

artist

"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.

provenance

The Hannelore and Rudolph Schulhof Collection, New York*

*Ecstasy was originally a part of the Schulhof Collection, founded by the couple Hannelore and Rudolph Schulhof and begun a few years into their marriage in the 1950s. The established collection is known for exceptional Postwar works including pieces by Johns, Rothko, and Twombly, to name a few. As Hannelore Schulhof stated in 2011, “Art is almost like a religion. It is what I believe in… it is what gives my life dimension beyond the material world.”

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 d’Automne, 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)

Sculptors’ 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, 1960 (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

Request information

Please notify me when works by José de Creeft become available.

Send enquiry