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William Congdon

American, 1912-1998

BiographyWilliam Grosvenor Congdon, 1912 - 1988, was an American painter who gained notoriety as an artist in New York City in the 1940s, but lived most of his life in Europe. He was a sculptor, painter of Abstract Expressionism.

William Grosvenor Congdon was born in 1912, in Providence, Rhode Island. Both parents came from rich families: the Congdons dealt in iron, steel and metals, while the Grosvenors owned a textile manufacturing business in Rhode Island. After graduating from St. Mark’s School of Southborough, Massachusetts, he studied English Literature at Yale University and graduated in 1934. For three years, Congdon took painting lessons in Provincetown with Henry Hensche, followed by a further three years of drawing and sculpture lessons with George Demetrios in Boston and then Gloucester. For some months in 1934-35 he frequented the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. After the United States entered the Second World War, Congdon was a volunteer ambulance driver with the American Field Service. He served with the British Army in Syria, and North Africa, Italy and Germany. He was one of the first Americans to enter the Nazi death camp of Bergen Belsen. Apart from a few brief visits to the USA, he used all his leave during this period to visit cities, art monuments and exhibitions. In 1948, he moved to New York , living in the Bowery. Thanks to the eruption of a whole new generation of “American” artists, the city now had an artistic culture that was as stimulating as that of Paris in the 1920s. In the 1950s, Congdon was recognized as one of the leading painters in the United States and quickly attained an international reputation as an Abstract Expressionist. During the 1950s Congdon travelled extensively, but Venice, Italy was the city he chose as his home for most of this time. In 1959, after a trip to Cambodia, Congdon returned to Assisi, Italy where he was received into the Roman Catholic faith. After returning to landscape painting until 1980, Congdon continued his artistic reflection on the Cross.

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