Grey Crawford (born August 9, 1951) is a conceptual artist. He was born, lives and works in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

, California.

Early life and education

Born in

Inglewood Inglewood may refer to: Places Australia *Inglewood, Queensland * Shire of Inglewood, Queensland, a former local government area *Inglewood, South Australia *Inglewood, Victoria *Inglewood, Western Australia Canada * Inglewood, Ontario *Inglewoo ...

, Los Angeles County, Crawford grew up in a small community in

Claremont Claremont may refer to: Places Australia *Claremont, Ipswich, a heritage-listed house in Queensland * Claremont, Tasmania, a suburb of Hobart * Claremont, Western Australia, a suburb of Perth * Town of Claremont, Perth * Claremont Airbase, an ...

in the neighborhood of hard-edge painter

Karl Benjamin Karl Stanley Benjamin (December 29, 1925 – July 26, 2012) was an Americans, American painter of vibrant geometric abstractions, who rose to fame in 1959 as one of four Los Angeles–based Abstract Classicists and subsequently produced a c ...

as well as the painter John McLaughlin who lived not far away in the Dana Point beach area. Crawford started his classical training in photography at the

Rochester Institute of Technology The Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) is a private university, private research university in Henrietta, New York, a suburb of Rochester, New York, Rochester. It was founded in 1829. It is one of only two institute of technology, institut ...

in New York in 1972, where he had close contact with

Betty Hahn Betty Hahn (born 1940) is an American photographer known for working in alternative and early photographic processes. She completed both her BFA (1963) and MFA (1966) at Indiana University Bloomington. Initially, Hahn worked in other two-dimension ...

Nathan Lyons Nathan Lyons (January 10, 1930 – August 31, 2016) was an American photographer, curator, and educator. He exhibited his photographs from 1956 onwards, produced books of his own and edited those of others. Lyons was also a curator of photography ...

, Michael Bishop, and Les Krims, among others. He returned to California as a graduate student in 1975 to continue his studies at the

Claremont Graduate School The Claremont Graduate University (CGU) is a private, all-graduate research university in Claremont, California, United States. Founded in 1925, CGU is a member of the Claremont Colleges consortium which includes five undergraduate and two grad ...

. Lewis Baltz had just departed the faculty but the influence of his neutral photographic documentation practice was still very noticeable. Besides, artists from a variety of disciplines were active during these years in Claremont as teachers and visiting lectures, like Michael Asher, Mowry Baden, Michael Brewster,

Judy Fiskin Judy Fiskin (born April 1, 1945 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American artist working in photography and video, and a member of the art school faculty at California Institute of the Arts. Her videos have been screened in the Documentary Fortnight ...

, Robert Irwin,

James Turrell James Turrell (born May 6, 1943) is an American artist known for his work within the Light and Space movement. He is considered the "master of light" often creating art installations that mix natural light with artificial color through openings ...

, Leland Rice, Paul Soldner, Harrison McIntosh, John Mason, and Ed Moses.

Work

Since the 1970s Grey Crawford produced an extensive body of work, embodying aspects from different disciplines and media in his photographic series. His oeuvre has rarely been exhibited in the last forty years and is just beginning to be the subject of art historical research. It was not until 2017 that his ''Umbra'' series (1975-78), in which he worked a masking technique in the darkroom to incorporate basic geometric shapes in his Southern California landscapes, was first rediscovered and presented to the public, making it a subject of critical attention. This was followed by the display of the series ''El Mirage'' (1976-79) and ''Chroma'' (1978-84). Since then his works have been published in several books and have been incorporated in the collections of the

Getty Museum The J. Paul Getty Museum, commonly referred to as the Getty, is an art museum in Los Angeles, California, United States, housed on two campuses: the Getty Center and Getty Villa. It is operated by the J. Paul Getty Trust, the world's wealthies ...

and the

Albright-Knox Art Gallery The Buffalo AKG Art Museum, formerly known as the Albright–Knox Art Gallery, is an art museum located adjacent to Delaware Park, Buffalo, New York, United States. The museum shows modern art and contemporary art. It is directly opposite Buff ...

Publications

* ''Finding Bones'', Published by

Kehrer Verlag Kehrer Verlag is an art book publisher based in Heidelberg, Germany, specializing in photography, fine art, and sound art. Its books are produced in cooperation with Kehrer Design, the affiliated office for design and image processing. History T ...

, Heidelberg 2017, Introduction by Timothy Persons, Essay by Lyle Rexer. * ''El Mirage'', Published by Hatje Cantz, Berlin 2018, Introduction by Timothy Persons, Essay by Lyle Rexer.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Crawford, Grey 1951 births 20th-century American artists American conceptual artists Living people