Drawings of the Brooklyn bridge by William Clutz

Frame: 19 1/2" x 14 3/4"
Larger drawing: 7 1/4" x 10 3/4"
Smaller drawing: 7 1/4" x 10"

William Clutz
(Source: Wiki) William Clutz (March 19, 1933 – July 26, 2021) was an American artist known for urban paintings, pastels, and charcoal drawings of pedestrian scenes transformed by light.[a] He was associated with a revival in figurative representation in American art during the 1950s and 1960s.

Clutz was born in Gettysburg, PA, and he grew up in Mercersburg, PA. He attended Mercersburg Academy and University of Iowa. He moved to New York City in 1955 to begin his career as a professional artist, and lived there until 1996 when he moved to Rhinebeck, NY.

In 1955, Clutz moved to New York City, and began his career as a professional artist. Situated in an area of other struggling artists, he lived on East 9th St. between Avenues B and C near Tompkins Square Park, the subject of several of his early works. He supported his painting career by working a number of part-time jobs. In 1957, he briefly took classes at the Art Students League in Manhattan.

In New York, abstract expressionism was the orthodox approach to art at the time. However, Clutz was committed to his personal style that focused on abstracted human figures within urban tableaux. Working in a context of artists who challenged abstract expressionism's popularity in New York, Clutz established himself as a significant proponent of abstract figuration. His paintings focus on human figures within the urban environment, often exposing the transfiguration of his subjects as they travel through the complex light of city streets or summer parks, as shown in two of his early works, Figures, 1960 and Summer Park, 1960.

Clutzs interest in working from direct observation of urban life was influenced by a long-standing interest in German Expressionism, as well as artists like Henri Matisse, Arshile Gorky, and Nicholas De Stael, and also Albert Ryder's series of reductive seascapes.

At points in his career, interest in Clutzs charcoal drawings or his pastels competed with interest in his paintings. In 1961, he began producing a series of large charcoal drawings at the request of his dealer, David Herbert. In 1962, Clutz joined the Bertha Schaefer Gallery on 57th Street, where his drawings continued to be in demand throughout the 1960s. In 1971, Brooke Alexander, a young contemporary print publisher and dealer, asked Clutz to create a colored print. After Clutz produced a series of large pastels, Alexander agreed to show them in his gallery. .[i] He continued to sell Clutz's pastels throughout the 1970s. Clutz produced some hand colored prints for Brooke Alexander during this period; some of these were exhibited by Alexander in Hand-colored Prints, 1973.

In the 1970s, Clutz continued to sell many pastels and paintings through the Alonzo Gallery on 57th Street. Many of these pastels were shown in his exhibition in the Walther-Rathenau-Saal, Berlin 1978.

The Alonzo Gallery closed in 1980, and in 1981 Clutz became represented by the nearby 57th St. Tatistcheff Gallery. He exhibited pastels often there in group and solo shows. Clutz left the gallery because he was more interested in showing paintings rather than pastels. After leaving Tatistcheff, Clutz continued to show pastels in Los Angeles at Terrence Rogers Fine Art.

In 1997 Clutz exhibited paintings at the Nicholas Davies Gallery in Manhattan's Greenwich Village, NY. .[l] He also exhibited new paintings at Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson, NY. After seeing these exhibitions, Katharina Rich Perlow invited Clutz to join her gallery, which happened to be located in same 57th St. building as Clutz's 1960s dealer, Bertha Schaefer. Clutz continued to show often and successfully at this gallery until it closed in 2009.

The artist was elected to the National Academy of Design in 2005.

Good condition overall