Joseph Glasco. The Fifteenth American

About

A selection of large-scale, collage paintings from the 1980s will be exhibited alongside two early works from the Collection of the late Stanley J. Seeger, Glasco’s most important and enduring patron.

One of the most original American artists of his time, Glasco found success early. At the age of twenty-five, he had his first one-man show at New York’s prestigious Perls Galleries and became the youngest artist to be represented in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. In 1952, Glasco was the final artist selected for the major MoMA exhibition ‘Fifteen Americans’, alongside Pollock, Rothko, Still and Baziotes among others: “Each is an artist of marked individuality and achievement [… giving] a clue to the thinking of the American artist in our period”. And yet, Glasco has all but disappeared from the history of contemporary art. Raeburn retraces the course of a fascinating artistic life through the highs and lows of the New York art scene from the 1950s to the ’80s. From previously unpublished material, he examines Glasco’s work, his creativity and ingenuity and explores the reasons for his subsequent neglect.