In the 1960s, Ossorio created his best known works. By the late 1950s, Ossorio was heavily involved in curating and organizing exhibitions including shows featuring Pollock, Dubuffet, Willem de Kooning, Hans Hofmann, Mark Rothko and David Smith. Ossorio bought an East Hampton, New York, estate, known as the Creeks, in which he housed Dubuffet’s entire Compagnie de l’Art Brut collection. His return to his home country fueled a search inwards as a source of inspiration. Ossorio’s major works included a mural commissioned for the Chapel of St. He met his lifelong partner, Ted Dragon, in 1948, as well as Pollock who guided his exploration of Abstract Expressionism. After his first solo exhibition at the Wakefield Gallery in 1941, Ossorio served the American Armed Forces until 1946. He received a bachelor’s degree in 1938 and complemented his art history studies with studio art classes at the Rhode Island School of Design.

He enrolled at Harvard in 1934 and, in 1937, launched an art career with cover designs for publications of work by poet Arthur Rimbaud. He later attended a Catholic boarding school in England and settled in the United States in 1930. It includes works by artist Thomas Derrick, sculptor Eric Gill, wood engraver Philip Hagreen, illustrator Denis Tegetmeier and artist and poet David Jones.īorn in 1916, Ossorio grew up in Manila in the Philippines.

Before becoming close friends with artists Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner and Jean Dubuffet, he inherited a sugar fortune and amassed an art collection that became part of the Fogg Museum at Harvard University. Abstract Expressionist Alfonso Ossorio grappled with themes of childhood, birth, sexuality, mythology and religion in his vivid art.

Alfonso Ossorio by Alfonso Ossorio