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Augusta Stylianou Gallery 
William Grosvenor Congdon (April 15, 1912, Providence, Rhode Island – April 15, 1998, Milan) gained notoriety as an artist in New York City in the 1940s, but lived most of his life in Europe. In 2001, The Sabbath of History, a book combining his works and the words of the future Pope Benedict XVI was published. Biography William Grosvenor Congdon was born April 15, 1912 in Providence, Rhode Island from a wealthy family of industrialists. In 1930 he enrolled at Yale University who attended until 1934, when he became deeply involved in painting under the aegis of Henry Hensch. In 1940 he opened a studio in Berkshire Hills as a sculptor under the guidance of George Demetrios. With the U.S. entry into war, Congdon encounters in the tragic horror of war, enlisting in the American Field Service to follow the U.S. Army in rescue in the concentration camp of Bergen Belsen. It begins as the artist had to face daily boundless cruelty a troubled reflection on the mystery of evil, which accompanies most of her life. After the war, William returns to New York in 1947 under the fervent cultural impulse that the city has continued to paint. By a ceaseless work as the first born exhibitions that are exposed to the famous Betty Parsons Gallery, along with works by emerging artists of Action Painting like Jackson Pollock, Willem De Kooning, Franz Kline and Mark Rothko. New York is the haunting ambiguity that he would like to portray, that its obvious mix of good and evil, beauty and corruption, which vehemently attracts the painter. Soon, however, the artist abandons America and his beloved New York, from which he feels hurt and betrayed because of rampant commercialism and an 'ignorance of the principles that he embraces as necessary. So search values towards closer and more dignified him to Naples where he knows he can meet people with a sincere faith in life, not masked by illusions. But Italy is bound to disappoint the expectations of the artist who gradually realizes the futility of his quest, the impossibility of finding that coveted nutrition values. He did not give up, does not abandon the desire and so stubborn unceasingly travel to Europe and many countries in Africa through testimonies and leave footprints through his genius. Just during the period in Europe from 1950 to 1960, his name began to become known and its landscapes to great success by critics who do not hesitate to celebrate his talent. Many compare his views with those of Turner, even if those American reflected a clear tragic note, a demon that he can not exorcise. Moreover, half of these years, dating back to the memorable meeting with the great Stravinsky, and then the beginning of an intense friendship that lasts for years. In 1959, a key step for the path of spiritual growth of the painter, when he embraced the Catholic faith by receiving His baptism in Assisi. From 1960 to 1970 he settled permanently in Assisi where by religious subjects resumed working on landscapes. Finally in the 70 resume his travels through India 's America and the Near East, until he moved in 1979 to Cascinazza (Buccinasco) Benedictine monastery located in the lower Lombard, where he spent the last few years and then goes off on the 15 April 1998, on his 86th birthday Paintings : * Naples Afternoon at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston What People write about him: * Clement Greenberg: " Congdon’s subjects are just urban views and buildings and he, following Klee, does not scorn the monotony of their structure. But if the structure is monotonous, the effect is not so. This repetitive all-over composition, without beginning or end, has previously appeared in analytical cubism and more recently in the work of painters like Mark Tobey, Jackson Pollock, and Janet Sobel [...] I am anxious to see what Congdon will do now. My impression is that he is only at the start of the evolution that will decide who he is as a painter. " * Peggy Guggenheim: "‘William Congdon is the only painter since Turner, who has understood Venice, its mystery, its poetry and its passion. He has a modern way of expressing himself, but his insight is as old as the city itself. He has been able to gather up the emotional essence of many centuries and has melted this vision into such a fantastic and beautiful dream that his paintings leave one breathless […] They are made of lava; they are blazing; they palpitate with the life and passion of all the Venetians who have long since gone to their final resting places." * Jacques Maritain : "When I met William Congdon in Paris, what most struck me about him was a strangely deep douceur, a defenseless candor, a vulnerability to any spiritual arrow, either the arrows of the distress of this world and of that beauty which wounds the senses, or the arrows of the supramundane shores. With him, as with Rouault… I felt that astonishing resemblance between the man and the work which is characteristic of genuinely great artists." * Mazzariol Giuseppe: "The story of a character of extraordinary opportunities, encounters and destiny is fascinating and in telling it the story itself, of a life intensely suffered and expressed, will necessarily affect us and convey to us moments of poetry, adventure, enlightenment and invention […] However […] it would be negligence to tell his story before that of his work as a painter, if only because his commitment to painting can be identified with his commitment to life and the forms of his painting themselves contain entire, true and direct, the charge of his existence." * Giulio Carlo Argan : "I believe Congdon has moved in the opposite direction to that of Gorky. He wanted to translate into our fundamentally – even pathetically - naturalistic European language, the anger of his original rebellion against the uniformity, the regularity, that brand of compulsory optimism which was imposed upon the American society. […] his contact with Europe, his way of communicating with the humanism of a suffering and moribund Europe, was not only an act of intellectual piety […] but also an opening toward the future. It was the sun at the end of a tunnel." * Testori Giovanni: " In Congdon’s Lombardy paintings there is the ability to close and open the liturgical sense and sound of life. […] And these paintings – for we are talking about painting – are “Longobard” also because they have the magnificence of those ancient jewels: their beauty is such that words should be switched off and one should linger in front of it, and learn from that tight, splendid, secret language of that unexpected and powerful goldsmith of our times that is the last Congdon" * Selz Peter: " Quite distant in space as well as in his mind, from the changing styles of the art world, he pursued his search and worked in a highly personal style. His recent paintings are no longer fields of action. Stripped of external appearances, Congdon’s paintings are now concise and silent representations whose sensuous surfaces cloak a transcendent presence." * Licht Fred: " The city as an expression of the totality of human aspirations and illusions, will be […] central to his art. […], the war revealed community and individual to have no protective shell. The ruins bore the whole spiritual, political, and biological history of the human race. The architectural motif, […] the ‘shell’ that humanity has built as a physical and spiritual refuge reveals itself not just as a protective wrapping […] , but also as a symbol of dignity and mystery." * Barbieri Giuseppe : "Congdon knew how to ensure that each painting, actually each draft sketch, had an independent irreversible place of “birth”. His paintings are born, as he obsessively repeats, not created. The images are the result of a creatural, not creative, dimension of the artistic act." * Cacciari Massimo : "William Congdon […] can be properly understood only by reference to the theory and experience of the icon […] because the series of his crucifixes are icons, reversed icons on a black base and not on a gold base like the icons from the East. […] The oriental icon has always been one of triumph, of victory, a promise of a celestial Jerusalem. In contrast, Congdon’s icons start from black and one can feel it, the black table on the background: from the culmination of the kénosis, from the crucifixion itself, one draws out the color." Museum Reference: Andover MA., Addison Gallery OF AMERICAN ART Atlanta GA, THE TEMPLE- HEBREW BENEVOLENT CONGREGATION. Boston MA, Museum of Fine Arts. Bristol RI, BRISTOL MUSEUM. Cedar Falls IA, UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN IOWA, LIBRARY. Cleveland OH, CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART. Detroit MI, Detroite Institute OF THE ARTS. Hartford CT, WADSWORTH ATHENAEUM. New Haven CT, YALE UNIVERSITY ART GALLERY. Kansas City MO, COLLECTION HALLMARK CARDS INC. Louisville KY, Speed Art Museum OF ART. Metropolitan Museum OF ART. Museum of Modern ArtMoMa. Whitney museum of modern Art. Memphis TN, MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART. New Brunswick NJ, JANE-VOORHEES-ZIMMERLI ART MUSEUM. Pittsburgh PA, MUSEUM OF THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTE. Portsmouth RI, PORTSMOUTH PRIORY. RHODE ISLAND SCHOOL of DESIGN. MUSEUM OF ART, R. I. S. D. PROVIDENCE COLLEGE. Rochester NY, Memorial Art Gallery. Santa Barbara CA, SANTA BARBARA MUSEUM OF ART. South Bend IN, THE SNITE MUSEUM, UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME. Southborough MA, ST. MARK’S COLLEGE PREPARATORY SCHOOL. St. Louis MO, ST. LOUIS ART MUSEUM. Syracuse NY, SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY ART COLLECTION, SIMS HALL. Toledo OH, Toledo Museum. Tulsa OK, Philbrook museum of Art. Urbana-Champaign IL, KRANNERT ART MUSEUM. Utica NY, MUNSON-WILLIAMS-PROCTOR INSTITUTE. Phillips Collection (MODERN ART GAL.) SMITHSONIAN: NATIONAL COLLECTION. Assisi, Pro Civitate Christiana, Galleria D’Arte Moderna. Cambridge, England, KETTLE’S YARD COLLECTION (University of Cambridge). Rome, Italy: MINISTERO DELL’INDUSTRIA DEL COMMERCIO E DEL ARTIGIANATO. CENTRO STUDI LAZIO. COLLEZIONE VATICANA D’ARTE RELIGIOSA MODERNA. Venice, Italy: THE Peggy Guggenheim COLLECTION. Venezia MUSEO D’ARTE MODERNA. Viterbo, Italy MUSEO D’ARTE MODERNA. 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