Oliver Foss, Expressionist Oil Painting Paris Scene View Architectural Visionism Olivier Foss

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Hand signed upper right
Oil painting on canvas, Unframed


"Street Scene" by Olivier B. Foss is an iconic artwork representational … Read more Hand signed upper right
Oil painting on canvas, Unframed


"Street Scene" by Olivier B. Foss is an iconic artwork representational of mid-century French Expressionist painting. The artist's personal visionary style is at once gestural, powerful, and textural, in which smooth transitions and strong contrasts alternate and balance one another. Foss is known as an Expressionist painter and as the founder of the doctrine of "Visionism."

Genre: Expressionist
Subject: People
Medium: Oil
Surface: Canvas
Country: France
Dimensions: 19.5 X 24.5 inches
Dimensions w/Frame: 28.5 X 33 inches

Olivier Foss was born in Hanover, Germany to a father who was a professor of philosophy and of graphic arts, which meant that his maturing son was exposed to a view of life that embraced both artistic freedom and analytical thinking. Foss took his secondary education in Berlin at Franzosische Gymnasium, and subsequently went to Paris where he studied at the Lycee Pasteur and Lycee Janson de Sailly. This educational period was followed by instruction with Paul Colin and Jean Dupas at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. Then Foss went to New York City and worked with Maria Annot and Ruth Jacoby, who organized Foss's first one-man exhibition at the Riverside Museum. A second exhibition took place at the New School for Social Research. Shortly after, he exhibited paintings at the 1964 World's Fair, the National Art Club and the Alma Reed Gallery. He also enrolled at the Art Students League where he took a drawing class from George Bridgman. However, his existence in New York was difficult because he had much distraction from making his own art because of needing to earn money. He worked as a poster designer, laboratory technologist, violin teacher and book illustrator. Foss then moved to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where he took the position of Fine Arts instructor at the University of Elizabethtown and at the same time, pursued his interest in science by studying for a Bachelor of Science degree. After graduating, he taught Bacteriology in Philadelphia and worked as a Laboratory Technologist. Then he moved to Switzerland and enrolled at the University of Basel to study more science. However, the call was strong to pursue his art talent, and in 1949, he left the university at Basel and returned to Paris, where he settled into the atelier at Villa des Ternes. Two years later, he had a one-man exhibition tour of the United States, showing in New York City, Boston, Palm Beach, and Philadelphia. In 1952, he returned to Paris, and exhausted, went into isolation to pursue his "new pictorial projects, which had haunted his mind for many years."
Olivier Foss is known for Abstract, expressive urban structure paintings. Living in Paris in an atelier in Villa des Ternes, He was of the generation of Victor Salmones, Paul Augustin Aizpiri, Eugene Berman, Leonardo Nierman, Andre Hambourg, Abraham Walkowitz, Aaron Bohrod, Guy Charon and Philippe Auge. In 1953, he had a career-changing exhibition, in that it brought him much positive public attention, and had paintings reflective of themes that ‘had haunted his mind’. Titled "Life's Deaths and Summits", the venue was the Galerie Drouant-David on the Rue du Faubourg Saint Honore in Paris. Each painting was intended to represent the ego in search of redemption, "the desperate voyage through the most acute stages of our existence: Love, Hatred, Sadism, Crime and Death itself, in which life's rending conflicts find their supreme solution." This exhibition drew promoters for international exhibitions, and subsequent representation in Paris at the famous Gallery Charpentier. The 1960s began with Foss and painter Armand Nakache organizing a large exhibition titled "Expressionnismes" at the Musee Galliera in Paris, followed by one-man shows in Switzerland and Germany. He is associated with Visionism, Expressionism, Fauvism. See less