Alfonso A. Ossorio

Alfonso Ossorio was an international man. He was born in Manila in 1916, went to school in England for a few years and moved to the United States, all by the age of 14. He became a citizen, and studied art at Harvard and served in the U.S. Army as a medical illustrator. The guy basically did it all. His art would then be as diverse as his complex experiences, evolving as an artist throughout the 40s, 50s, and 60s. He’s described by writer Saul Ostrow as an artist that bridged “the great divide between European art brut and American Abstract Expressionism”. And as sullivangoss.com puts it, “His works challenge the viewer to find meaning in a vastly changing time period when scientific theories overshadowed his austere religious background”. Ossorio was a devout Catholic, who struggled to reconcile his beliefs with his homosexuality. His work reflects such conflicts.



He began his career as a painter in the 1940s, where he worked with Surrealism, and would later befriend two famous avant-garde artists, Jackson Pollock and Jean Dubuffet, who would help influence his evolving styles. As such, in the 50s Ossorio began to experiment with “art brut , where the minds of the insane helped him in his construction of art that broke free from social constraints. This would all lead up to his more well-known “congregations” of the 60s, where he went away from paint and used actual objects to create abstract images and forms.

The trend I found most prevalent in the articles written about Ossorio is that he is referred to as an important figure in the evolution of “American” and “Western” art, thus succeeding in transcending the term Filipino-American and establishing himself as an important historical, American figure in terms of art.

As an immigrant though, he never forgot his roots. The most impressive thing about him, for me, is that in 1950, Ossorio went back to a war-torn Philippines, specifically to the Chapel of St. Joseph the Worker on the Island of Negros, where he stayed for several months to paint a cosmic last judgment scene.



He never forgot his roots and used his unique immigration experience to fuel his passion for art.

-Robert Noble