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Conrad Marca-Relli American (1913-2000) Born in Boston, Marca-Relli and his family moved to New York when he was thirteen. After graduating from high school in 1930 he studied for about a year at Cooper Union, but was otherwise primarily self-taught. He worked on the WPA Federal Art Project during the Depression years as a teacher and painter - allowing himself for the first time to conventrate exclusively on painting - and at this time he was to meet Franz Kline, Willem De Kooning and other artists who were to be influential in the post-war years. After military service in World War II Marca-Relli returned to New York, and it was during a trip to Mexico in the early-1950s that he was first to develop the use of canvas collage in his paintings. Originally a means to convey a sense of depth and weight to often light-toned works - and also a quick and tactile method of working - by the early-1960s he was also using metals and plastics, as well as canvas, in his collage paintings. Marca-Relli was very actively involved with the other first-generation Abstract Expressionist artists, participating in and helping organizenumerous important exhibitions, but he increasingly distanced himself from the New York Schhol; living and working in other areas of the country and finally in Europe, where he was to spend much time in Italy. A retrospective exhibition was held at the Whitney Museum in 1967.

 

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