William H. Clutz

American, born 1933

(not assigned)New York, USA

SchoolFigural Abstraction

BiographyN/ABorn 1933, Gettysburg Pennsylvania, he grew up in Mercersburg, attending Mercersburg Academy and the University of Iowa (BA)

He was a Manhattan resident from 1955 to 1996.

Clutz is known for urban paintings, pastels, and charcoal drawings of pedestrians in light.

Along with his peers, Elmer Bischoff, Alex Katz, Grace Hartigan, Earl Kerkam, and Richard Diebencorn, Clutz was recognized as a significant proponent of abstract figuration in the renewed interest in figuration of the late 50's and 60's in such exhibitions as "Recent Drawings, USA", 1956 and "Recent Paintings USA, the Figure," 1962 at MOMA, "The Emerging Figure", Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, Texas, 1960 and "The Figure International" American Federation of Arts, 1963.

Since his first solo show in 1959 in New York, Clutz has exhibited regularly in New York City and been represented by well-known New York City Galleries such as Katharina Rich Perlow, Tatistcheff, Alonzo, Graham, Brooke Alexander, Bertha Schaefer, and David Herbert.

Clutz has also had solo exhibitions at Triangle Gallery San Francisco, Tatischeff/Rogers in Los Angeles, John C. Stoller Minneapolis, and Walther Rathenau Saal Berlin, Germany.

Clutz taught painting and drawing at Parsons the New School for Design 1970-1992.

Significant works by Clutz's work are included in the collections of Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden DC, The Newark Museum NJ, Dayton Art Institute OH, Museum of Modern Art NY, Metropolitan Museum of Art NY, Museum of the City of New York NY, Corcoran Gallery of Art DC, Washington County Museum MD, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum NY, Mercersburg Academy PA, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University MA, and many corporate collections such as Chase Manhattan Bank NY, Bradley Family Foundation WI, McKinsey and Company NY, Mobil Corporation VA, Minnesota Mutual Life Insurance MN and many others.

Clutz's exhibitions have been reviewed by such newspapers as the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner, and MorgenpostBerlin, Germany, and frequently in national art magazines such as ArtNews, Arts, Art in America.

Included in Dictionary of Contemporary American Artists, Paul Cummings, ed. Who's Who in America, Who's Who in American Art, and Allgemeines Kunstlerlexikon, Munich, Leipzig: K.G. Saur Verlag.

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