MUSEO COLLAZO © Raphael Collazo Foundation 2004. All rights reserved.

A selection of prophetic paintings, all currently known mature paintings and a selection of mature works on paper are cataloged in approximate chronological order.

Introduction to the Prophetic and Mature Paintings

INDEX OF PROPHECIES (1975-1976)
with commentary

INDEX OF TAPESTRIES (1984-early 1986)

Index of Early Tapestries (early-middle 1984)

Index of Middle Tapestries (late 1984-early 1985)

Index of Late Tapestries (middle 1985)

Index of Epic Tapestries (late 1985-early 1986)

INDEX OF NYMPHAL INSTARS (middle-late 1986)

INDEX OF HEALING GARDENS (1987-1988)

Index of Early Healing Gardens (early-middle 1987)

Index of Middle Healing Gardens (late 1987-early 1988)

Index of Late Healing Gardens (middle-late 1988)

INDEX OF TRANSCENDENCE (early-middle 1989)

REFERENCE

The Collages and Boxes of Raphael Collazo
Martin Haggland, 1998-1999

Index of Collages and Boxes (1969-1983)

The Rococo Works of Raphael Collazo
Martin Haggland, 1999

Index of Rococo Works (1969-1983)

The Mature Works on Paper of Raphael Collazo
Martin Haggland, 2000

Index of Mature Works on Paper (1984-1989)

The Figure in the Art of Raphael Collazo
Martin Haggland, 2002

Index of Figurative Works (1961-1988)

Chronology

Manuscripts

One-Person Exhibitions (1984-Present)

Museum Collections

Source Materials and Notes

Source Materials

The Paintings of Raphael Collazo: Notes

The Collages and Boxes of Raphael Collazo: Notes

The Rococo Works of Raphael Collazo: Notes

The Mature Works on Paper of Raphael Collazo: Notes

The Figure in the Art of Raphael Collazo: Notes

Chronology: Notes

Raphael Collazo: Catalogue Raisonné
Martin Haggland, 2001-2002

Raphael Collazo Foundation

Copyright Notice

The Paintings of Raphael Collazo

Martin Haggland, 1997-1999

"I am convinced that there are vast areas still to be explored in Abstract Expressionism. We have simply suffered a temporary diversion into other modes."

-- Raphael Collazo

Acknowledgements

Most of the information on this world wide web site and in the accompanying catalog would have been lost were it not for the meticulous collection of Collazo's documents by Kay Acker. These documents are now preserved in the Colección de las Artes of the Library System of the University of Puerto Rico through the efforts of Iris R. Parrilla and Oscar Mestey-Villamil. Equally indispensable is Steve Bates' photographic record of the artist's works.

The author gratefully acknowledges the time and effort that Wilbert Cruz and Oswaldo Flores contributed over a period of several years to preserve and to document that work. As well, the following museums and institutions deserve recognition for their commitment to preserving and exhibiting Collazo's artistic legacy:

Colección de las Artes
Library System, University of Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico

The Hispanic Society of America Museum
New York

Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña
San Juan, Puerto Rico

Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico
San Juan, Puerto Rico

Museo de Arte de Ponce
Ponce, Puerto Rico

Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico
San Juan, Puerto Rico

Museo de Arte e Historia de San Juan
San Juan, Puerto Rico

Museo de Historia, Antropología y Arte
University of Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico

El Museo del Barrio
New York

Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art
New York

Museum of New Mexico, Museum of Fine Arts
Santa Fe, New Mexico

New Britain Museum of American Art
New Britain, Connecticut

The Parrish Art Museum
Southampton, New York

State University of New York Albany Museum of Art
Albany, New York

Tampa Art Museum
Tampa, Florida

Tucson Museum of Art
Tucson, Arizona

The University of Arizona Museum of Art
Tucson, Arizona

The University of Utah, Utah Museum of Fine Arts
Salt Lake City, Utah

Yaddo
Saratoga Springs, New York

Preface

By establishing this world wide web site and publishing the accompanying catalog, the trustees of his artistic estate hope to introduce Raphael Collazo to a wider public. First, some prophetic works are considered, then a selection of paintings from the last six years of the artist's life. Reference materials follow; including three monographs (on the collages and boxes, the influence of the Rococo and the works on paper of 1984-1989), a chronology, manuscripts and statements by or about the artist, a list of one-person exhibitions, a record of works in museum collections, a description of source materials and notes. The title, date, medium and dimensions of each work appear with its image. Additionally, the collection, location and relation to other works in its series are shown in the index.

The late Ernest Acker-Gherardino (1924-1995) is frequently quoted. An artist himself, Acker-Gherardino was Collazo's life-long friend, his patron from 1984 onward and the curator of most of his exhibitions.1

Introduction

Raphael Collazo (1943-1990) was a New York painter of Puerto Rican birth; whose work is rooted in Abstract Expressionism, in the Italian masters and in the eighteenth century French painters, particularly Watteau. Prophetic, abstract expressionist paintings of 1975 and 1976, such as Emergence and The Annunciation preceded the artist's mature work by nearly a decade.

Collazo had always been burdened by the necessity of working for a living until 1984, when his patron gave him the freedom to devote all of his time to painting. The result was a remarkable acceleration in his artistic development and the production of the body of his mature work in the six-year period before his untimely death, at the beginning of 1990. The known, mature work consists of 119 paintings on canvas or wood panel and 184 works on paper, notably the 30 painting-like works on paper of the Healing Gardens series.2

The first mature paintings, the Early Tapestries (early-middle 1984), often have maze patterns or girder structures, as seen in Nervous Environment and Lost Ground. While called "Tapestries", the works in this series are not literally tapestries, but derive that name from the rich, tapestry-like effect created by their many layers of brush strokes. The Middle Tapestries (late 1984-early 1985) are large-scale, collaged paintings, typified by historical or philosophical themes, such as Italy For You and How to Draw & Paint. These were followed by the bold, usually freeform, constructions of the Late Tapestries series (middle 1985), including Landscape with Saint John the Baptist and Squid. The Epic Tapestries (late 1985-early 1986) are dense swamp or forest landscapes, exemplified by Goodbye Rococo and The Magic Is Back.

The Tapestries were followed by the Nymphal Instars (middle-late 1986), a series of paintings inspired by the metamorphosis of insects, which in Collazo's work refers to the creation of life and to spiritual awakening, as in Nymphal Instars II and Wing Venation.

After the Nymphal Instars, the artist struggled for a new approach. This, he attained in the Healing Gardens (1987-1988); which are composed predominantly of human and biomorphic shapes rather than lines, marking a fundamental shift in his formal approach. Also distinctive is a light palette with an extensive use of white. Multiple landscape vignettes characterize the Early Healing Gardens (early-middle 1987), such as Vermont and Arcadia; while works of the Middle series (late 1987-early 1988), such as A Healing Garden and All Souls' Day, radiate a healing power. Late Healing Gardens (middle-late 1988), such as Man in China and Fresher by the Minute, evoke the immense forces of nature that shape the Earth.

The Transcendent series comprises the Black Figure and the Yaddo paintings. The introspective and ethereal Black Figure paintings (early 1989) contain a single black figure, perhaps engaged in some heroic task, in an achromatic and mythic realm, as in Fata Morgana and New World Rider. In contrast to that ethereality, the Yaddo paintings (middle 1989) express a love for the physicality of nature. Inspired by the woods of the Yaddo art colony, the artist used forest colors and thick, textured impasto in the form of stones, earth, leaves, cones and bark; in landscapes, such as A Bower and Forest Rendezvous, one of his final works.

In his recent analysis of the painter, critic José Antonio Pérez Ruiz concluded:

"Throughout his life, Raphael Collazo... put all of his determination into developing a body of work that reflected his multifaceted character. He directed his task in a very personal way. The use of private symbols let him bring together in his canvases both conscious and subconscious subjects. His search for ever wider and more distant expressive horizons did not permit his task to be circumscribed by ephemeral fashions, nor did it let the transitory impose restrictions on his works. Rather, it allowed his inner impulses to act and to call forth the elements that he incorporated in his paintings. What was necessary in his creations depended upon whatever he believed to be right at the moment of painting them. Observing his work as a whole, we perceive that he maintained an aesthetic independence. It is difficult for us, therefore, to ascribe him to any schools or movements. Nevertheless, we can affirm that Expressionism constituted the liberating catalytic agent of a labor for which he was forced on many occasions to interrupt the sequentiality of time....

At other times, the artist made use of chance occurrences, extracting from them images susceptible of interpretation, whose function is to stimulate the imagination. In these cases, his realizations provide rich interpretative challenges. In them, we find paths that branch off to give way to subjective manifestations. Thus, he favored individual interpretations that transform each canvas into a place where all of these understandings meet."3

PROPHECIES (1975-1976)

"Looking back", said Collazo in 1984, "I see that intimations of my present style flashed forth periodically in my work of previous years. Many times, these isolated paintings seemed to me of no consequence. Actually, they were prophecies, the full realization of which is now on display."4 Such paintings include The Ladies, Left Behind For Cythera, Southold Fen, By A River, Emergence and The Annunciation. These works reflect the influences of Abstract Expressionism, the Italian masters and the eighteenth century French painters, as commented upon in the Index of Paintings: Index of Prophecies (1975-1976). Of The Annunciation, Acker-Gherardino wrote:

"In The Annunciation, which significantly he originally called Desecration, we see perfectly illustrated the all-encompassing awareness that gives Collazo's work its unique thrust. In his searching antiquarianism combined with an acute sense of passing through time, he presents us with a sense of the truly new....

The Annunciation is a seminal work in Collazo's oeuvre, a prophecy of what we see marvelously realized in the 'tapestry' paintings ten years later. As he describes the painting of this picture: he had done a large rendering of Leonardo's Annunciation, so fascinated was he with this master work of the Renaissance painter. Then, he proceeded to 'bring it up to date' by overpainting with sgraffito-like gestures. He 'attacked' the rendered work as time attacks everything, symbolically obscuring it in skeins of event, enriching it with experience.

What Collazo is saying is that we are not fixed in some permanent past where everything is new, as it was when first completed. Neither can we escape back into some former world. We are here, now; the centuries intrude between us and that once new thing, though it still shines through with a continuing richness....

Unlike most painters of his age: self-imposed moderns, cut off in their own small time, eschewing the past in the misplaced rage to be new, Collazo approaches all time, the truly new.

Annunciation is exciting because it shows us the starting point of Collazo's developed philosophy of painting: to live in all time and to see all..."5

TAPESTRIES (1984-early 1986)

Early Tapestries (early-middle 1984)

Acker-Gherardino curated Collazo's first mature exhibition, in September 1984, choosing from the Early Tapestries and including the first two paintings of the Middle Tapestries series. All 34 paintings shown were from the preceding nine months with the exception of one much older work. Acker-Gherardino explained that exception:

"...Emergence..., painted in 1976, was a prophecy, eight years in advance, of Collazo's mature modern style. It was also a prophecy of paintings to come after the present date. In this painting, as in the paintings produced in the last nine months, the brush ranges at will over the canvas, free, without constraint or presuppositions. Here, the artist is thinking with his hand, that is: the thought and the stroke are simultaneous. Long threads and swirls are built up to form the image, with a layered, cumulative force. Suddenly, they are slathered together to form a new ground. This is scratched into with new lines, the way ruins build up. New slashes of paint and skeins are woven over this. A chalky yellow shines through the predominantly blue lines."6

While Abstract Expressionism had the greatest influence on Collazo, his painting is firmly rooted in the Italian tradition of figure and landscape painting: "I am well versed in the Italian Masters from Cimabue to de Chirico and they have been a constant inspiration in my work."7 Again: "The things I think a painting should achieve, in my era, or in any era, are in the Italian masters, from Cimabue to de Chirco, in Giotto, in Giorgione, Bellini..."8 A lesser, but still important, influence were the eighteenth century French painters, especially Watteau.

With few exceptions, the Early Tapestries are figural and, without exception, all are landscapes. One common element, noted Acker-Gherardino, "...is the maze-grid, which is an ingenious way of establishing perspective and at the same time a transparent floor, also a way of folding space... or, more aptly 'warping space'. In none of Ralph's paintings do we come up against a solid wall of resistance. This is a floating world...."9 The maze-grid can be seen in Furnished Landscape, Court and Nervous Environment.

"...Lost Ground is a pivotal painting", said Acker-Gherardino, "This painting has more empty space than all the others. It marks the abandonment of "pretty", "nostalgic" subject matter and the first bold step into the brutal modern landscape, as embodied in the girder structure on the left. It is a spare, confident clearing of the decks. Soon, the paintings that follow will fill up with contemporary references.... To me, the significance of these elements, the girder and the grid-maze, is that everything can be penetrated and allows us the layering of experience, visual experience...."10

Sardonyx, with its girl on a swing and its splendid sense of air and movement, shows the early, but lasting, influence of Watteau on Collazo's sensibility; in this instance, The Swing (c. 1712, The Museum, Helsinki).

The shifting planes of the maze-grids float lyrically in Labyrinth; while in the masterful I Carve Up the Space, they break up the space in complex ways reminiscent of Analytical Cubism. The girder structure, of the "brutal modern landscape", appears in the form of an abandoned, underground railroad tunnel in subsequent paintings, such as In the Midst of Life; while in Spirit of Ohm, it appears as a high-tension electrical pylon and Elimination of Death "shows the spontaneous, almost chemical generation of a glittering tower of life, into the light of which a figure steps, already glowing with its reflection, out of the twilight blue with skeletal black structures of the background."11

One of the late paintings of this series, So Lonely Since You Went Away, is a meditative scene with seated figures at the edge of a forest pool and standing figures in the distance. It is similar to the earlier works, but is more sophisticated in creating a mood.

Middle Tapestries (late 1984-early 1985)

In Italy For You, which portrays the Eternal City, the artist initiated the grand themes that would occupy him during this period. Emboldened by the success of the Early Tapestries and inspired by his recent tour of Italy, Collazo explored historical and philosophical themes centered around the concept of time; a reflection of his desire for an "all-encompassing awareness", to "live in all time and to see all":

"For me, the present is not just today. It is the sum of everything I have seen and felt and read before, plus today. Now is the oldest age, a hundred years older than 1884, for instance; not the newest.

Older is better. We are not in a capsule of the present. We are living for all time. That is how I live in my paintings. This cumulative experience is missing from the truncated lives in which we trap ourselves by trying to be new. A work of art frees us from this tortured circumstance."12

Matching the 80 x 70 inch size favored by de Kooning, these large abstract expressionist canvases are dominated at first by webs and then by triangular grids, as seen in The Anxious Rate of the Heart, The Beginning of Time (inspired by a mathematical diagram of that event in Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time), Style of the Month, Nekofi Cerkafi, and Moon in the Window.

Later, pages from books and fragments of tapestries enrich the paintings' allusions. Collazo delighted in shopping at stores along New York's 14th Street, buying vulgar tapestries, cutting them up in his studio and applying the fragments to his canvases. Remnants continue to appear in his paintings for more than a year. The sophisticated humor of How to Draw & Paint, for example, derives from its pages from a "how to" book on making "art" and pieces of a notoriously kitsch tapestry of bulldogs playing pool.

The entire surface of Archeology is collaged with pages from one of the artist's favorite books on that subject, evoking the passage of human time; while Terrible Lizards, with pages from a book on dinosaurs, is a contemplation of time on the geological scale. In later works, the tapestry fragments depict biblical themes; also creating a sense of history, deepening the meaning and enhancing the grandeur of the paintings.

Late Tapestries (middle 1985)

The distinguishing features of the Late Tapestries are bold areas of black, virtuoso abstract expressionist passages, aggressive collage elements (even tarpaper) and the use of wood panel instead of canvas, as seen in Landscape with Saint John the Baptist, an early painting of the series. Such energy could not be constrained within the confines of the rectangle for long.

Vibrant freeform constructions, such as Squid, N.G.C. (New Galaxy Cataloged) and Arc (K), soon appeared, made of curvilinear and triangular wooden panels attached to a central, rectangular canvas or panel. In these strong compositions, the solid areas of black and the painterly passages replace the formerly dominant webs and grids, which remain at first as vestigial elements, then disappear. Also gone are the grand themes: the theme of these works, true to abstract expressionist principle, is strictly their own form and the process of creating them. About Collazo's painting method, Pérez Ruiz remarked:

"...we can affirm that Expressionism constituted the liberating catalytic agent of a labor for which he was forced on many occasions to interrupt the sequentiality of time. When that happened, he could reveal an esoteric knowledge that can place us in futuristic spaces and even can bring to mind transgalactic cultures. These are panels dominated by spiraling strokes that create turbulent sensations. Among those brushstrokes, isolated visions begin to appear, not yet completely materialized before our eyes. When we look at these panels, we note how those pictorial whirlwinds act. They seem to behave as if demarcating the space in order to establish their own world. At times, we seem to discern compositions planned to contain within them new paradises. Those brushstrokes seek to emulate the action of the Almighty when he gave order to preexisting chaos."13

From this time onward, the artist painted primarily on wood panel, a stable support for his collage elements and increasingly thick impasto.

Works on paper, sometimes cut out and collaged onto the paintings or onto other works on paper, include the remarkable Destructure, in which the web and grid structures have disintegrated, revealing an expressionist, painterly style.

Epic Tapestries (late 1985-early 1986)

The freeforms were quickly followed by the Epic Tapestries, the astonishing climax of the Tapestries series. Lady of the Swamp, an early work on paper, displays the dense swamp or forest setting typical of these works. Such masterpieces as She Who Knows What Happened There, Slithy Toves, Arcana Mundi, Veduta, Goodbye Rococo, Bug World and The Magic is Back allow the viewer to gaze upon a preternatural swamp or forest landscape of mysterious beauty.

"Goodbye Rococo shows an energetic tropical world of water, vegetation and animal-like forms. Vibrant colors enhance the painting's movement and beauty, while the large size of the work immerses the viewer in this imagined world."14

"Goodbye Rococo was a sort of valedictory for Collazo", says Peter Bermingham, "a fond farewell to the flowery sentiments and stylish motifs that keynoted much of his work in the early eighties. Goodbye Rococo captivates by its insistent contrasts. For example, a beautifully rendered swampscape is completed by flowers on musty wallpaper; a cloth duck and a sandpaper satellite float upon the scene, while sumptuously painted waves are transformed into fish or 'completed' by dry bark. It all works, I think, in a way best described by Joshua Taylor's reflections on Robert Rauschenberg written in 1974. 'The most stirring beauty,' he wrote, 'comes from order found, not order given, as if its permanent harmony existed precariously in a transient and unpredictable world.'"15

NYMPHAL INSTARS (middle-late 1986)

By the summer of 1986, Collazo had become fascinated with "nymphal instars", an early form of certain insects before they metamorphose and develop wings. His interest was likely sparked by a collection of Lepidoptera specimens given to him by a friend four years before. Paintings of this series contain images of cocoons, within which creatures are transforming or from which they are emerging; and patterns of venation as seen in the wings of flying insects, such as dragonflies or butterflies. This imagery became, in Collazo's paintings, a powerful reference to the creation of life and to spiritual awakening. In comparison to the swamps and forests of the Epic Tapestries, the Nymphal Instars are like jungles filled with exotic creatures and rich coloration.

Metamorphoses, a work on paper, perfectly embodies the essence of the artist's realization, developed on a large scale in Nymphal Instars I, Nymphal Instars II, Bug Out, Complete Metamorphes and the magnificent Wing Venation. At the time he was exhibiting these paintings, he wrote:

"Essentially, my work consists in placing anonymous, mostly biomorphic shapes and volumes at different distances in a dramatic, deep space realized by careful juxtapositions and gradations of color. I use renaissance space, both atmospheric and geometric and strive for a grandeur of arrangement and gesture in my forms. By this I hope to achieve a timeless and limpid environment in which the eye can wander...."16

After these achievements, Collazo struggled for a new approach. Sepia Sojourn, Watteau Back and El Soñador may be precursors; while Instars II clearly shows the dominance of shape over line which, from this time, characterizes the artist's work. It also shows the concept of space as multiple landscape vignettes which characterize the next series, the Early Healing Gardens.

HEALING GARDENS (1987-1988)

Early Healing Gardens (early-middle 1987)

In the major shift in his formal methods which divides the Tapestries and Nymphal Instars from the Healing Gardens and Transcendent paintings, Collazo began composing his works primarily of human and biomorphic shapes, rather than lines.17 Also distinctive is a light palette with an extensive use of white. In the Early Healing Gardens, the shapes are highly varied in form and define multiple landscape vignettes. These simultaneous vignettes are conceptually similar to the Cubist's use of multiple perspectives to more fully depict an object. Compared to the sequestered swamps, forests and jungles of the earlier series; there is a great sense of light, air, openness and distant horizons, as seen in Fast Forward, Vermont, Paseo, Paradiso and Arcadia. Speaking of his month-long stay at the Vermont Studio Colony, the artist relates:

"The different perspective and surroundings deepened the work. Removed from the familiarity of my own city, outside of myself, I clarified my forms and added new ones. They began to combine human and biomorphic shapes interchangeably.

At the same time, the space in my paintings has shifted to add size perspective to geometric perspective and de-emphasize atmospheric perspective. Forms overlap. They relate more to each other rather than float independently. While still striving for a grandeur of arrangement in a timeless environment, I have now drawn back, so that what formerly occupied an entire canvas may now be only a segment of a larger landscape. I am paradoxically involved in a synthesis of modernist flatness with a simultaneous conveying of depth. I am tending toward more classic arrangements while not losing baroque drama..."18

Middle Healing Gardens (late 1987-early 1988)

Observing St. Augustine's dictum to "always proceed" that the artist had inscribed on an early work, Collazo moved beyond depicting the natural world as a metaphor for the mysteries of the human soul. For the first time, in the Middle Healing Gardens, his paintings attained a heavenly transcendence. The extensive use of white, the soothing rounded forms and the unitary spatial composition (as compared to the more varied shapes and multiple vignettes of the Early Healing Gardens) contribute to the sense of harmony and well-being.

These triumphant works are radiant with a healing power and were created in the artist's heart felt desire to assuage the pain of human suffering. Speaking about The Visitors and A Healing Garden, he said:

"...I was reading about visualizations, and I knew someone, a close friend who passed away, several friends who passed away, and the last one was a cancer patient and I was thinkin' -- I read a lot about the people meditating and visualizing and helping to ah have their illnesses go into remission. So, I was thinking along these lines and I was reading, and I had listened to this tape about meditating and visualizations; and when I listened to this tape it was like everything was up in space, in the air and in the light. And they talked about this beautiful white light, and it's a healing light. And this gave me great inspiration for my paintings; I thought 'Oh, this sounds beautiful' and I wanted to have a place like that so people would look at my painting and say 'Oh this is a beautiful, peaceful place I can sit down and meditate', and feel this wonderful warm light, healing light...."19

Although not religious in a traditional sense, the paintings are deeply spiritual. In The Visitors, the first in this series of epic-scale works, the ancient, wise and beneficent red-robed guardian figures seem of another world; in the upper right of A Healing Garden, a grey-robed "guide" leads the way to a world where pain and suffering no longer exist; in For the Good of Us All, figures float in a heavenly city of colonnades, plazas and resplendent gardens; and in All Souls' Day, a host of jubilant spirits fills the sky.

Collazo also painted several joyous works of moderate size, including Lepidoptera, A Gathering and Topiary; as well as a series of small paintings on paper which radiate the same purifying light and restorative effect as the great works. At first, the series has a transcendent quality, as seen in Fold-a-Roll. Later works evoke the ocean's renewing power, as in Passage II; through a dominant tonality of white combined with exquisite colors, shell-like impasto and other marvelously inventive forms:

"I have been intent upon expanding my paintings' images", explains Collazo, "synthesizing diverse elements of my previous techniques and becoming, at the same time, freer and more skillful. For me, economy is not an object. I want to put everything in my paintings: constantly invent new forms, employ every color and shade I can concoct, vary my surface, create new textures and use collage, or rather appliqué elements I make myself.

Thus, I mean to touch some deeper reaction source, achieve excitement, beautiful excitement, painting excitement, the excitement of paint, as opposed to the numbing excitements of violence and disorder that is our everyday and TV experience.

My paintings have a landscape basis, with foreground, middle distance and sky. Aggregations of forms are like gatherings in a crowd, open areas in between, air passing through. Within this space I try to make something happen that will give the viewer, and myself, a whole and satisfying experience, lifting us out of everyday life by symbolizing something wonderful, a memory, or an expectation of what can be: Drama and anticipation, conveyed with paint, color, form."20

Late Healing Gardens (middle-late 1988)

The Late Healing Gardens continue the series of small paintings on paper. However; in an abrupt departure from the earlier works, there are no heavenly scenes, nor idyllic beaches. Here, we are confronted with the raw power of nature: mountains rise from the sea in Man in China, cosmic events unfold in Gethsemane, an avalanche crashes into a surging river in Punta Rocosa and rudimentary life forms battle for survival in Fresher by the Minute. These works are a prelude to the profound paintings that were to come during the last year of the artist's life.

TRANSCENDENCE (early-middle 1989)

"Collazo worked arduously", wrote critic Nilda M. Peraza, "to finish his ultimate series, the Transcendent Series, which illustrates in a profound visual manner his farewell, his passage from the earthly to the spiritual, works completely interlaced with memories, experiences, ruptures, premonitions and dreams, achieved in his pictorial language of profound lyricism and emotional depth. Here, the art of Collazo comes together and offers us a painting intuitively connected by his dramatic sense of life.

Without becoming pessimistic, his visions explore the depths of his spirit and from his silences emerge, in tranquility, a clear sense of triumph before the undoing of death."21

The Transcendent series, composed of the Black Figure and the Yaddo paintings, may be viewed as the final flowering of the Healing Gardens. Shapes remain the primary formal element, but now there is more "empty" space or "air", created by unbroken areas of subdued color and subtle gradations.

Black Figures (early 1989)

In early 1989, the artist's painting transcended to an ethereal and mythic realm, virtually devoid of color and characterized by a single black figure in a cream and neutral space, as in You Pushed Me and Devonian Times. Pérez Ruiz observed:

"Among Collazo's creative variations, exist monochromatic panels in whose nucleuses emerge diffused figures that seem to constitute themselves through a process of molecular assemblage, making us see those beings in the processes of formation, like specters whose motions do not obey the laws of physics. Those personages enter into the scene like irresistible forces.... They act in deserted environments where it is almost impossible to delineate the horizon from the sky. The surfaces are marked by irregular textures.... Those scars accentuate the aridity existing in these conceptions and contrast with the saturated atmosphere prevailing in others."22

The Black Figure paintings are the most searching, introspective and psychologically penetrating of the artist's conceptions. In Fata Morgana and New World Rider, the figure seems embarked on a heroic journey in an eternal world of swirling fogs and shrouded horizons. On the other hand, the aptly named Bon Vivant appears to be revelling in earthly pleasure.

Yaddo (middle 1989)

In contrast to the ethereal Black Figures, the works of the Yaddo series express joy in the physicality of nature by means of their subdued forest colors and thick, textured impasto. Perhaps contemplating his own mortality; Collazo, like an awakening dreamer, seems to grasp onto something solid to assure himself of its and of his own reality. Inspired by the woods of the Yaddo art colony, the heavy impasto of these paintings takes the form of stones, earth, leaves, cones and bark. Here, in the summer of 1989, he painted Conspiracy [of 1989], A Walk in the Woods, Concordia Domus, Model of Decorum, Walking Stick, A Bower, The Jokers and the sublime Forest Rendezvous, perhaps his final work. Of this masterpiece, his former dealer, Rosemary C. Erpf, said: "With the painting Forest Rendezvous..., Raphael achieved the control of his own powers as an artist. In this work of great beauty and strength, one realizes a mature work by an artist of our time."23

Interpreting the Paintings

"...I want my work to say it all to the viewer by just looking. It could mean so many things to so many people, so what I say is irrelevant. I want it to mean what it means to you. Not what it means to me."24

-- Raphael Collazo

The most striking aspect of Collazo's paintings is the marvelous diversity of shapes and colors awaiting our discovery. Abstract, sometimes gestural, these forms often bring to mind objects in nature -- importantly, the human figure. In other cases, the forms are enigmatic and our attempt to decipher them leads to a multiplicity of possible interpretations, or none at all. Perhaps those forms represent objects in the process of formation and, thus, the creative principle itself. Or, perhaps, they are chance elements that the artist decided to leave and, thus, are best understood as representing the unknown, or unconscious. That uncertainty resonates throughout each painting, precluding any simple explanation of its meaning but, thereby, creating its power. While the recognizable forms, with their many associations, may be the ones we first notice and enjoy; the indecipherable ones bring a sense of wonder to the painting.

Together, the multitude of forms define the landscape-like space in which they reside. "...something is definitely happening," remarked Acker-Gherardino, "some crucial, mysteriously important, normally unnoticed event. But these are not story-telling paintings, although something significant and dramatic seems to be going on. They start you imagining what might be, producing your own fantasy."25 A form at the center of I Carve Up the Space suggests a fairy-tale house in the woods where magical events might occur or extraordinary adventures begin. Or perhaps it reflects a longing for home. The house and the other readily-interpreted forms, such as a woman holding an enormous bundle of pink flowers on her shoulders and a bent bicycle, combine with the enigmatic forms to suggest a dream-like narrative of significant, yet not-quite-apprehensible events. This mystery motivates us to ponder the many possibilities in order to resolve our mental perplexity; although, ultimately, we are unable to do so. That explains why the paintings exert a continuing fascination.

In Paseo, an early work on paper of the Healing Gardens series, recognizable natural objects, including the human figure, and other less-identifiable, but intriguing, even fantastic forms populate the garden landscape -- more exactly the multiple landscape vignettes -- and create a flat, modernist, but paradoxically dimensional surface. The event in this work, as reflected in its title, is a paseo, or a walk, though a grand one, as through one of Watteau's fêtes galantes. (The eighteenth century French painter's courtly garden scenes were beloved by Collazo and were a continuing source of his inspiration."26) The shapes and colors of the forms delight, but also engage a deeper level of our minds. By combining the familiar and the enigmatic, the artist stimulates us to gaze, inquire and devise possible scenarios for the existence of his rare and delicate worlds. As we explore those worlds, Collazo sets off within us a stream of visual memories, associations and novel impressions. Pérez Ruiz noted how: "At... times, the artist made use of chance occurrences, extracting from them images susceptible of interpretation, whose function is to stimulate the imagination. In these cases, his realizations provide rich interpretative challenges. In them, we find paths that branch off to give way to subjective manifestations. Thus, he favored individual interpretations that transform each canvas into a place where all of these understandings meet."27

Unlike the paradisal Paseo, the figures and landscapes of the artist's late, Black Figure series are psychologically penetrating and stark. New World Rider suggests a queen-like figure mounted on a horse passing through the rocky, deserted landscape of a mythological world suspended in time. This evocative event starts us musing over its meaning. As we contemplate possible interpretations, we begin our own imaginative journey. But, after all of our fantasies, the mystery remains and with it the enduring power of Collazo's paintings to enchant us.

Conclusion

In her essay for Collazo's 1994-1995 retrospective exhibition at the Museo de Arte e Historia de San Juan, Peraza declared:

"This was a painter who defined and linked his vision of art, strongly rooted in tradition, with a very specific personal vision and a strong expressive power, in a process where heterogeneous resources, by means of discordant textures, brilliant colors, assemblages, rapid brush strokes and unfinished passages, sustain in equilibrium his intuition and the painting's unity.... Collazo had a unique and authentic sense of the art that he brought forth, on one hand, giving free rein to his gestural and spontaneous nature and on the other, to his predominant passion for color.... The themes proceed from his personal experiences, from his environment: landscapes, allusions to art, religion, to the experience of the Puerto Rican in foreign surroundings, to his constant search for expression, at the highest level....

He always remained solitary in his work, sculpting his independent means of expression, expanding his constant investigation of form and space, the purity of color, the force of texture; from which central point flowered his own, so personal, style. The form, of precise contours, the use of pure and intense colors, the predominance of his refined drawing although always nervous, dense, lacing his painting with past styles but utilizing modern pictorial methods, the resonance of color, the texture of great relief and the dramatic effects of profound contrast, all were resources that took his painting to a high degree of visionary intensity accentuated by an impactful expression, intuitive and vital....

What previously has been the property only of family, collectors and friends now has become... the common patrimony of the Puerto Rican people. And in the process, reveals to us the universality of Raphael Collazo's art."28

The Author

A friend of Collazo and a collector of his paintings since 1979, Martin Haggland, now director of Raphael Collazo Foundation, was director of Art Lobby, a New York exhibition space, which presented the artist's first mature paintings, the Early Tapestries, in the exhibition Recuerdo (I Remember): The Paintings of Raphael Collazo, Art Lobby, New York, September 29-December 31, 1984, extended through April 18, 1985, curated by Ernest Acker-Gherardino.

Source of Opening Quotation

Raphael Collazo, unpublished statement, Autobiographical Statement: Raphael A. Collazo, New York, c. 1983.

Note on the Color Plate of Raphael Collazo with Ernest Acker-Gherardino, 1985

This photo was taken on November 19, 1985 at the reception for the R. C. Erpf Gallery's inaugural exhibition, NeoModern, a show of gallery artists. Collazo exhibited She Who Knows What Happened There, seen in the background.

REFERENCE

The Collages and Boxes of Raphael Collazo

Martin Haggland, 1998-1999

Collages and boxes are important among Raphael Collazo's early works because they foreshadow the use of collage, assemblage and appliqué in his mature paintings.

The Performers Gesvaldo is a fine example of the figurative drawings of 1969 that immediately preceded the artist's earliest collages, in 1970. Such delicate, figurative works were shown with the collages in his first one-person exhibition, at the Galería Santiago in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1971. The collages titled Lady Lovely & Lover and The Best from Vogue are of that period; and it is certain that Palace Theater, Room with Brown Floor and an early state of Picture Box, without the figure, were in the exhibition.1 A favorite motif of Collazo's, and one that returns in later work, is a room opening onto another room which opens onto yet another room and so on, endlessly. The artist exploited this effect, similar to the infinity of reflections in two facing mirrors (which he used literally in Picture Box), to achieve both spatial and psychological dimension.

By 1972, Collazo was assembling boxes with the "intimate nuances"2 of Joseph Cornell's (1903-1972). This homage to a revered artist began before Cornell passed away, at the end of that year, and continued throughout 1973. Among these Early Boxes; Swaneria: Marina's Dream is a tribute to Collazo's mother, seen in a bathing suit in the lower left, with plastic swans, ballerinas, parakeets and toy Spanish fans set against a landscape painting and a map of the constellations. The opulent Elephant Palace displays a multifarious collection of souvenirs and ornamental objects, including a bejeweled elephant. French Castle juxtaposes a Renaissance castle and a noble steed of the Feudal Age with an Industrial Age auto junkyard, inducing contemplation about time and the "progress" of civilization. Planetary Box is a reminiscence on early scientific investigation with references to astronomy, chemistry and electricity. Royal Brighton Swan Box rises to an indefinable poetry.

Appearing to date from the same period are an assemblage, The Jester, perhaps inspired by Watteau's commedia dell'arte paintings, and a collage, Grid of Twelve Collages. In the latter, the many references to flight throughout the ages and the eighteenth century French figures create the acute sense of passing through time that Ernest Acker-Gherardino identified in Collazo's work.3 The dancing figure in the lower right corner is echoed in Arcana Mundi more than a decade afterward and the butterflies presage the Nymphal Instars paintings.

Against color fields of copper and turquoise, 18th Century Abstract, of 1975, contains an Abstract Expressionist cherub and a collage of eighteenth century French figures reminiscent of those in The Best from Vogue and Palace Theater. The Rococo was a continuing influence on the artist, despite his supposed farewell to it in Goodbye Rococo, of 1986.

The prophetic Annunciation, circa 1976, is collaged in the upper right corner with a print of Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece of the same name, the inspiration for this ambitious work. Referring to Collazo, Acker-Gherardino wrote: "As he describes the painting of this picture: he had done a large rendering of Leonardo's Annunciation, so fascinated was he with this master work of the Renaissance painter. Then, he proceeded to 'bring it up to date' by overpainting with sgraffito-like gestures. He 'attacked' the rendered work as time attacks everything, symbolically obscuring it in skeins of event, enriching it with experience."4

In 1980, the artist delighted himself and his friends with a humorously-titled creation, Low Fat & Fish Eye, in which a goldfish swims upside-down in an aquarium and, in the room behind, a decidedly not "low fat" personage is seated. A yellow "wall" suggests yet another room in an "endless" series. This work, therefore, contains four distinct spatial entities: the aquarium itself, containing its watery realm and inhabitant; the room containing the aquarium; the room containing the figure; and the distant yellow "room", which could just as well be the sun-filled world outside, opening onto space and at the same time containing all of the interior volumes. Collazo thus achieved great depth and, thereby, psychological dimension: an introspective pondering of the infinite.

Low Fat & Fish Eye was followed by a second series of boxes during the latter part of 1980 and throughout 1982. The Late Boxes include Everything in Life, with an upside-down récamier sofa, a sideways horse and a harmonious crowd of memorabilia; the witty St. Joseph of the Concourse, with a cellophane-covered saint, plastic ivy and lace doilies; the luxurious triptych Whose Favorite Bird was the Peacock?, with artificial leaves and ferns, an ornamental, plastic peacock landscape, a latticework trellis and peacock feathers; and the bucolic Villa with Saint & Picket Fence, with a rustic dwelling, a field of plastic ferns and eucalyptus branches, a lath fence and a collaged saint. The latter two works demonstrate the artist's movement away from his earlier, strict adherence to the Cornell-like box. My Soul's Desire, a collage with a print of the mysterious and spiritual fifteenth century French tapestry The Lady of the Unicorn and decals of fish and a butterfly, came in 1983.

Collazo's use of collage and assemblage continued in the mature paintings, of 1984 to 1989, reflecting his love for Rococo embellishment; now elevated to impart a richness of meaning, rather than decorative effect. In the Early Tapestries, such as Court and Lost Ground, he applied model landscaping materials onto his canvases; and in the Middle Tapestries, such as How to Draw & Paint, Archeology and Terrible Lizards, he collaged pages from books and fragments of dime store tapestries. In the Late Tapestries, such as Squid and Arc (K), he assembled freeform constructions and covered them with tarpaper and cutouts from his drawings; and in the Epic Tapestries, he incorporated a surprising variety of collage materials -- even the triangular palette from which he had been painting Veduta.5 Fragments of wallpaper and the cheap tapestries became transformed into objects of marvelous beauty in paintings such as Bug World and The Magic Is Back.

Rosemary C. Erpf, the artist's dealer of that time, later wrote: "Collaged elements were also present. Pieces of gold molding and street-vendors' plastic flowers were presented in the scale and manner of salon paintings. These decorative fragments were unfettered by the irony usually associated with kitsch, because of the painterly hand in which they were integrated. In a painting titled Goodbye Rococo, fragments of velvet printed rugs peaked out under globs and layerings of paint. Gestural strokes of paint all but covered pieces of ornamental plastic."6 In later work, Collazo formed the paint itself into appliqué elements. Erpf states: "A faint pink figure barely materializes in the pastel-colored... [All Souls' Day]. However, the thrust of this painting is not the figure, but that of painter become mosaicist. Gluing irregular-shaped discs to the canvas, Raphael took his passion for collage and paint to their extreme."7 In later paintings, the discs became shell-like, as in Lepidoptera, or fossil-like, as in You Pushed Me, Devonian Times and New World Rider.

This passion continued to the end of the artist's career, as seen in his last paintings. A Walk in the Woods combines a blue plastic guitar pick, miniature glass flowers on wire stems, glass-headed pins and cabochons. Concordia Domus has thick, rounded, paint masses that resemble stones, small leaves glued together to create a convincing effect of pine cones and rough-surfaced layers of paint that form the illusion of tree bark. Walking Stick contains only the timeless, stone-like forms more typical of the Black Figure series. Finally, his masterpiece, Forest Rendezvous, is composed of ornamental plastic flowers and birds, paint appliqué, metal house numbers, lead rosettes and, surprisingly, a tiny wooden bird that spins around.

The Rococo Works of Raphael Collazo

Martin Haggland, 1999

Introduction

Two major themes may be observed in Collazo's early works, before 1984: assemblages inspired by the boxes of Joseph Cornell (1903-1972), which are discussed in The Collages and Boxes of Raphael Collazo, and paintings with a Rococo exuberance inspired by Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721), best known as the painter of fêtes galantes (scenes of gallantry). These romantic and idealized scenes, in fanciful outdoor settings, depict elaborately costumed ladies and gentlemen in pleasant dalliance.

Rococo, a style of art that originated in early eighteenth century France, grew out of the Baroque and is characterized by profuse ornamentation, such as graceful and delicate shell and foliage patterns. It can also connote immoderate embellishment. Distinctive to the paintings of Watteau is a moderation, a delicacy and a great tenderness of feeling, which undoubtedly attracted the sensitive, young Collazo, who penned "I Love Watteau" on an early watercolor.

However, the artist did not always follow his finer instincts. Abetted by his facility as a painter, he often lapsed into excessive decoration. The influence of the Rococo was, thus, a blessing and a curse, reaching a nadir of prettiness in the Floribundia paintings, of 1983. Fortunately; Collazo was able to overcome this defect and afterward his lavish color and opulent textures deepen, rather than diminish, the power of his work.

EARLY ROCOCO (1969-1970)

Extremely delicate, old-master-like, pencil drawings and watercolors, exemplified by the sepia-toned Maiden and the exquisite Chinese Landscape, preceded a figural series which includes The Performers Gesvaldo. This series was shown in Collazo's first one-person exhibition, along with collages of eighteenth century French figures in ornate rooms, such as Lady Lovely & Lover, The Best from Vogue and Palace Theater.1

Many years later, the artist explained: "...my visions were fantasies of a longed-for past; or of huge rooms, when I actually lived in small; or of grandiose scenes, when I lived in squalor, paintings that in essence were an escape from an unsatisfactory and hurtful present: the need to work for a living and paint in my spare time."2

After the exhibition, Collazo painted many small oil paintings. Two landscapes on panel, Three Graces and Trellis, are the finest and show Watteau's ever-beneficent influence.

MIDDLE ROCOCO (1975-early 1980)

Left Behind For Cythera, of 1975, shows a psychological twist on Watteau's The Embarkation for Cythera (L'Embarquement pour l'Île de Cythère, 1717, Louvre, Paris) and is profoundly introspective. It is unfortunate that such insight was so often subordinated to mere decorative effect in Collazo's Rococo paintings, a weakness that remained until 1984.

18th Century Abstract, another strong work, contains an Abstract Expressionist cherub and a collage of eighteenth century French figures reminiscent of those in The Best from Vogue and Palace Theater of the Early Rococo series.

Blond Bronx also demonstrates Collazo's tendency to Abstract Expressionism; while later paintings, such as Fish Lips and Bellezzata Calmata, although expressionist in feeling, became hard-edged. Many works of this period have the solitary figure recurrent in Collazo's ouevre and the "endless" rooms, originally seen in the Early Rococo.

Acker-Gherardino comments on individual paintings in the artist's 1980 exhibition, some as early as 1975:

"Here, with an exuberance of line, an immersion in color, a fascination in creating high-ceilinged, endless rooms for his personages to move around in, Collazo follows wherever his fantasies and abundant talent lead him. He means to charm, to give pleasure. Indeed, this is an art of enjoyment, pure and simple; so that, with Fellini, he might well say: 'Life is a holiday, let us enjoy it together'....

[In Bellezzata Calmata], we see an extravagantly beribboned and scarved creature in a tiny, enigmatic mask, poised at the edge of a lake, which dissolves into clouds and mist with the ever-present floor planks and with perspective lines surrounding her in a prismatic space....

But it remains for a master adequately to describe the atmosphere of a Collazo work. As though looking forward over the decades and singling out the painting of a large, blue toucan, a lady and the ghost of a Giotto village [Reality Being Too Thorny for My Great Being]; Arthur Rimbaud wrote in his poem Bottom:

'Reality being too thorny for my great personality -- I found myself at my lady's, an enormous gray-blue bird soaring toward the moldings of the ceiling and trailing my wings through the shadows of the evening.'"3

LATE ROCOCO (1983)

In 1983, the Rococo flourished vibrantly, then to excess, as is its nature. Preceded by Whose Favorite Bird was the Peacock? and Topiary Garden, the Pleasure Gardens were exhibited in September. "Subjects are animals, birds (many peacocks), ladies and gentlemen in eighteenth century attire, lush vegetation and gazebos, summer houses, rivers, streams, fish, boats, mansions, corridors and arcades arranged according to the precepts of abstract-expressionist space."4 A Scene From The Life of Giotto, based on that artist's The Vision of Anna, c. 1307, is characteristic. Other works include Aquaria and the inward-looking My Soul's Desire.

With that exhibition in progress, Collazo started a series of a dozen paintings, including The Astronomy Lesson, High Tea and Floribundia. The "Floribundia" paintings mark the abandonment of "pretty", "nostalgic" subject matter.5 A second series of a dozen paintings followed immediately -- the first of the Early Tapestries, the beginning of the artist's mature work.

The Influence of the Rococo in the Mature Paintings (1984-1989)

The Rococo never disappeared from the artist's sensibility and Watteau's influence was not restricted to early works, such as Left Behind For Cythera. The Rococo found its genuine, most powerful expression in the rich colors, in the luxuriant textures, including collage and appliqué, and in the many-layered allusions of Collazo's mature, abstract paintings; and the French painter never ceased to exert an irresistible fascination. A wonderful example is Sardonyx (compare to The Swing, c. 1712, The Museum, Helsinki).

Of the late 1985 and early 1986 paintings, Rosemary C. Erpf, the artist's dealer at that time, wrote: "His work was then moving from a lyrical landscape style steeped in Watteau, and lacy with Rococo embellishments, to full palette paintings knit loosely with biomorphic automatic drawings, punctuated by bravado passages of collage and collage-like surfaces. A key painting during this period was Veduta...".6

In Veduta and five other large paintings, "Collaged elements were also present. Pieces of gold molding and street-vendors' plastic flowers were presented in the scale and manner of salon paintings. These decorative fragments were unfettered by the irony usually associated with kitsch, because of the painterly hand in which they were integrated. In a painting titled Goodbye Rococo, fragments of velvet printed rugs peaked out under globs and layerings of paint. Gestural strokes of paint all but covered pieces of ornamental plastic."7

Peter Bermingham, curator of the artist's 1992 retrospective, describes the same painting as "a sort of valedictory for Collazo, a fond farewell to the flowery sentiments and stylish motifs that keynoted much of his work in the early eighties. Goodbye Rococo captivates by its insistent contrasts. For example, a beautifully rendered swampscape is completed by flowers on musty wallpaper; a cloth duck and a sandpaper satellite float upon the scene, while sumptuously painted waves are transformed into fish or 'completed' by dry bark."8

While painting works such as Nymphal Instars I, Complete Metamorphes and Wing Venation in middle and late 1986, Erpf observed that: "Raphael moved from dense, jungle-like landscapes packed with fantastic organisms to airier, richly colored abstractions."9 Specific to Watteau's influence is Watteau Back, a charming outdoor scene with gowned figures, including one in Watteau's signature pose.

Paseo presents the same theme with a modernist flatness achieved through the use of varied shapes that define multiple landscape vignettes. Said Collazo: "I am paradoxically involved in a synthesis of modernist flatness with a simultaneous conveying of depth."10 Its superb color, diverse shapes and subtle restraint simply cannot prepare us for the extravagant and absolutely delightful work to come -- Paradiso, which "resembles French garden scenes of the late 1700s with its topiary, edged shrubs, roses and even a mandolin."11 Both works date to 1987.

In the following year, Collazo painted the splendorous All Souls' Day, which opens onto heaven like a great Tiepolo ceiling. Among the many notable works in this series are Lepidoptera, with its classic Rococo shell-like appliqué, and Topiary, a modern-day fête galante.

"I want to put everything in my paintings...", the artist said, "constantly invent new forms, employ every color and shade I can concoct, vary my surface, create new textures and use collage, or rather appliqué elements I make myself."12

Erpf stated: "During 1987 and 1988, he painted many successful smaller works on paper. Torsos and personages began to emerge from these pieces -- at first in the guises of angels and fairies, returning to his homage to Rococo salon paintings [see Fold-a-Roll and Passage II]. But this also paved the way for the later and last figurative paintings, The Jokers and Bon Vivant."13

Collazo's final works were painted in his studio in the woods of the Yaddo art colony. The subdued, forest colors and thick impasto textures of Concordia Domus demonstrate his continuing love of Rococo richness; Model of Decorum is clearly based on Watteau's L'Indifférent (c. 1716, Louvre, Paris), proving that artist's life-long influence on him; and Forest Rendezvous is enriched with kitsch, plastic, wall decorations of flowers and birds. Attached to the wood panels and overpainted, they give crucial color, form and meaning to this glorious composition.

The Mature Works on Paper of Raphael Collazo

Martin Haggland, 2000

Raphael Collazo's works on paper during the Early Tapestries period and the beginning of the Middle Tapestries period served as sketches for his paintings. Thereafter, they became independent works of art. The artist began to use paint in his works on paper in the Middle Tapestries period. Its use could be described as moderate throughout the Tapestries period, generous in the subsequent Nymphal Instars and Early Healing Gardens periods, and predominant in the Middle Healing Gardens period and afterward. During the Middle Healing Gardens period (late 1987-early 1988); Collazo began applying impasto onto large wood panels, then changed his support to moderately-sized sheets of archival paper. Interestingly, the small works of the artist's final series, the Transcendent series, appear to be painted on panel, but are actually on paper. Glued to the panel, the paper is painted over so thickly that only a hint of it remains. Although not painted directly on canvas or panel, the works on paper of the Healing Gardens and Transcendent periods are truly paintings and have been treated as such in this catalog.

TAPESTRIES (1984-early 1986)

Early Tapestries (early-middle 1984)

Raphael Collazo's works on paper during the Early Tapestries period consist primarily of sketches for paintings, such as Furnished Landscape, which follows the drawing closely and retains its spontaneity. Of special interest are a series of six felt pen sketches on tracing paper for the Tunnel series, such as In the Midst of Life Sketch, upon which the painting In the Midst of Life is based.

Middle Tapestries (late 1984-early 1985)

In the Middle Tapestries period, several 12 x 9 inch works on paper composed of pencil, charcoal, paint stick and gouache are sketches for Collazo's large and ambitious paintings, such as The Beginning of Time. Others stand as independent works of art, demarcating the point after which the artist no longer relied on sketches to initiate his paintings. Of note is a portfolio of fifty, colored pen drawings that was discovered in Collazo's barn. Examples include 1985 Portfolio, Sheet 1, 1985 Portfolio, Sheet 2, 1985 Portfolio, Sheet 22 and 1985 Portfolio, Sheet 27. In many cases, one wishes that the artist had used these drawings as the basis for his paintings. However, the influence was less direct as, for example, in Nekofi Cerkafi.

Late Tapestries (middle 1985)

Many works from that portfolio exhibit the black, freeform shapes characteristic of the Late Tapestries series, as does Sea Lion, not found in the portfolio. An intimate view of the artist's thoughts is revealed in a small notebook. One page, Notebook D, Leaf 6, contains nine drawings of birds in a series which progresses in style from representational to completely abstract. Other leafs are of equal interest. As is true for most artists, works on paper serve as a convenient way to explore new ideas and this notebook gives us a rare insight into Collazo's thinking process, which he was disinclined to document in writing or to discuss in person. From such exploration arose such innovative works as Squid and Arc (K), which in the center of its heart shape shows how Collazo, at this time and in the next period, cut out elements from his drawings and collaged them onto his paintings. Later works on paper are more painterly, such as the admirable series composed, among others, of Memory of a Dream, Blue Spiral, Remembrance of Hoffman and Amphora, which has snippets of drawings. Destructure, one of the finest works on paper, tentatively has been assigned to this period. However, its larger size and superb, painterly quality suggest a later date.

Epic Tapestries (late 1985-early 1986)

Lady of the Swamp displays the dense forest and swamp environment seen in Collazo's Epic Tapestries paintings, such as Slithy Toves. Contention, Nest and Bug World Series #2 evidence more subdued and painterly versions of the black, freeform shapes which originated in the previous period. These subtler shapes also appear in the paintings, as in The Magic is Back. Of his works on paper, his art dealer observed:

"At this particular time, Collazo's paintings were informed by an incessant, automatic-type drawing much in the tradition of Matta and early Gorky. Raphael drew constantly when he was painting, and when he was not. He filled notebooks with pencil and ball point pen drawings while watching television at night. Some of the created organic forms appeared in the studio the next day."1

NYMPHAL INSTARS (middle-late 1986)

The works on paper of the Nymphal Instars series exhibit the characteristics of the paintings: a concern with the emergence of life and the opening of the soul to its spiritual qualities; symbolized by forms resembling cocoons, chrysalises and the venation of insect wings. The swamp-and-forest effect remains; but now, like a tropical rain forest, the environment contains exotic and brightly-colored creatures. Flora & Fauna shows these qualities; while Bramble, unique in its monochromaticity, contains the winged-insect forms; and Metamorphoses is the epitome of the artist's Nymphal Instars conception, as a comparison with the paintings Nymphal Instars II and Wing Venation will reveal.

HEALING GARDENS (1987-1988)

These works reflect the major shift in Collazo's painting from linear forms to impasto shapes and occur in three series: the Early Healing Gardens with marvelous, varied shapes; the Middle Healing Gardens with soothing, rounded shapes; and the Late Healing Gardens with powerful, tumultuous shapes.

Early Healing Gardens (early-middle 1987)

The delightful variation in the shapes and colors of these works display Collazo's immense invention. The application of paint is generous, but rarely impasto. Some of the finest examples of the Early Healing Gardens include Sweet Dreams, with its Watteau-like mise en scène, including gowned figures in a garden landscape, a fragment of a statue with classical drapery and the Modernist update of an orange "DeKooning" woman; Paseo, which allows the eye and the mind to wander among its charming shapes and colors; the splendid Paradiso, whose elaborately-costumed figures, topiary and trellises again reference that great eighteenth century French painter of fêtes galantes; the contented bliss of Arcadia; and the tranquil harmony of Aggregations. Although the works on paper are smaller in scale, they do not differ in feeling from the paintings, such as Fast Forward and Vermont.

Middle Healing Gardens (late 1987-early 1988)

During the Middle Healing Gardens period, the artist created some of his most important paintings, such as A Healing Garden and All Souls' Day, on 8 x 8 wood panels (composed of two or four smaller panels, bolted together). These paintings are dominated by round, impasto shapes and a white tonality that create the soothing, meditative feeling desired by the artist. Upon the closure of his gallery in August 1988, Collazo changed from the use of the large panels to sheets of archival paper measuring 30 x 22 inches, continuing to apply the paint and impasto much as before. Although some of the works on paper are sweet and sentimental; those worthy of mention include, among others, Fold-a-Roll, Passage III (compare to A Healing Garden) and Passage. The abundant use of impasto, described by Ernest Acker-Gherardino as being created by mixing marble dust into the paint, continued to the last of the artist's painting. It reflects his love of paint as expressed in a comment made at this time about the English painter, Frank Auerbach:

... "I like his work a lot. I like him the best ah because of what he does with the paint -- I like thick paint, as of lately I've been just thinking of swimming in paint; and ah, I'm just -- I love his work. It's very beautiful. It's very lush, and very generous and I love that. I feel that I want to be -- I love that idea: to be generous with paint and to just use as much paint as you like, with no obstacles. This is the way I've come to think of my work lately: to use as much as I want or as little as I want without any obstacles; and if it costs me hundreds of dollars to go out and buy paint, I can go out and buy hundreds of dollars worth of paint and put it on one painting. So I want to be generous with my materials."2

Late Healing Gardens (middle-late 1988)

In the Late Healing Gardens period, Collazo reinvigorated his works on paper with a great strength, as in Man in China; Gethsemane, with its strikingly bold colors; Punta Rocosa and Fresher by the Minute. The larger works in this series are double the previous size and, more importantly, the shapes have become powerful and tumultuous, like geological and cosmic forces, moving the Earth and the heavens. At the same time, the color has lost its former, cloying sweetness and has become robust. This renewal of strength led to the profound and serene works that were to follow -- the Transcendent series -- of which three are known to be overpaintings of Early and Middle Healing Gardens paintings that presumably no longer satisfied the artist.

TRANSCENDENCE (early-middle 1989)

For the smaller works of this period, Collazo glued his customary, archival paper onto wood panel. The edges and some uplifted corners of the paper are visible under the paint. At least some, perhaps all, of the painting was done after the paper was attached. This fortunate change in materials provided a stable support for the impasto that Collazo enjoyed using. Such works include Fata Morgana of the Black Figure series, which may be compared to the larger works painted directly on panel, such as New World Rider and Bon Vivant. Of the Yaddo series; A Walk in the Woods, Foris Pax, Concordia Domus and Model of Decorum similarly may be compared to A Bower, The Jokers and Forest Rendezvous.

Conclusion

It seems unlikely that an artist of Collazo's talent would return to expressing his vision in the restricted medium of a work on paper after having fully expressed it in a painting. It is more likely that he would try to expand upon his vision, incorporating evolved and new elements into his next series of paintings. If we accept the premise that Collazo used works on paper as a convenient way to evolve his ideas and explore new ones, we arrive at a useful principle in determining the chronology of his works on paper: that they immediately preceded the paintings of a similar style. Therefore, the work on paper Metamorphoses may be viewed as a breakthrough that, in turn, led to the major paintings of the Nymphal Instars series, such as Nymphal Instars II. Such an approach, combined with the "evolutionary" principle that intermediate works combine elements of immediately earlier and immediately later works, may prove beneficial in improving the chronology of Collazo's works on paper and, thereby, arriving at a better understanding of his artistic development.

The Figure in the Art of Raphael Collazo

Martin Haggland, 2002

Raphael Collazo had high aspirations for his paintings, and he never avoided confronting the most sublime -- and most challenging -- subject of art throughout the ages: the human figure -- in other words: our own being.

This essay is an account of that work, examining the evolution of his figures from their humble origins into the powerful expression of inward searching, love and joy that radiates from the canvases of the artist's final years. Although there were strong premonitions, those figures did not achieve a sustained expressiveness until 1984. Beginning in that year, the representational façades gave way. Rather than the outward appearance of the figure, the animating and psychological forces within came to be the subject of Collazo's art, as powerfully stated in Bon Vivant, of 1989.

Early Figures (1961-1965)

Collazo's earliest work, mostly produced while he was a student at the School of Visual Arts, in New York, shows a singular interest in the human figure in all of its particular manifestations of sex and age. While there is some degree of abstraction, the works are primarily representational.

The theme of the solitary figure, usually standing, was to reappear continually throughout Collazo's oeuvre, with increasing pscyhological profoundness. However, over the years, the representational and particular depiction of individuals that is seen in these early works changed into an abstract and universal depiction of the essence of all human beings.

Girl in a Landscape, from the artist's last year in high school, is his earliest documented work. No. 724 and No. 599, although undocumented, are believed to date from just afterward.

No. 844 ["Le Grande Caggia"] depicts Ernest Acker-Gherardino, who was to have a long and significant influence on Collazo's artistic development. This portrait is believed to have been drawn soon after Collazo met the older and, at that time, more accomplished painter in late 1965 or early 1966.

Collazo was a natural, without a sense of art history, whereas Acker-Gherardino was a graduate of Cooper Union, where he had acquired a comprehensive knowledge of artists and art movements. His advanced Cubistic figure-and-landscape abstractions had a strong effect on the younger artist over the next two years. In general, Collazo was easily influenced by other artists and adopted the more experienced artist's approach for a while, in the same way that he was later inspired by the Abstract Expressionists, particularly Rauschenberg, Pollick and deKooning1, the Italian masters "from Cimabue to deChirico"2, Jean-Antoine Watteau and the other eighteenth century French artists3, Joseph Cornell4 and, more contemporaneously, in the 1980s, by the strong biological basis of Terry Winters' work, reflected in Collazo's Nymphal Instars series, of 1986.5

Cubistic Figures and Landscapes (1966-1967)

In 1966, living with Acker-Gherardino and observing his approach to painting, Collazo became analytical. He strove for increasingly abstract figural compositions, using simplified planes of color, in paintings such as No. 257 and No. 079. The correspondences between the latter and Aggregations, of two decades later, illustrates the artist's comment in the year of this work:

"I have now drawn back, so that what formerly occupied an entire canvas may now be only a segment of a larger landscape."6

The figure, by necessity, exists in an environment of some sort, be it a landscape or interior, and Collazo took a great interest in that setting. Even the paintings without figures are of interest because they demonstrate Collazo's approach to the landscape in which, at a later time, his figures would exist. Therefore, this essay will consider those environments -- with or without figures -- ranging from the semi-abstract or representational landscapes and interiors of the early years, to the artist's late and grand Baroque compositions of vast and ever-receding space, to the mist-shrouded worlds of his final year.

In 1967, colorful landscapes came to the fore, exemplified by No. 365, Landscape II and No. 40. They display a concept of space forged by Analytical Cubism, undoubtedly the influence of the paintings that he saw Acker-Gherardino creating.

Collazo was trying to work out an abstract means of expressing the landscape. Particularly intriguing is the relationship between the early canvases and those painted two decades later. In the early pieces, the artist was struggling to find a means to express the landscape abstractly; in the later ones, it came naturally to him.

Over those twenty years, a work such as No. 365 evolved into a Paseo, populated with numerous abstract figures. In Landscape II, one can observe the origin of the multiple landscape vignettes that became fully developed in For the Good of Us All and the other Healing Gardens. In those works, which have a freer, more painterly technique, the formerly uninhabited landscape is now filled with a multitude of figural shapes. In No. 40 the space is already broken up in Cubistic fashion. The difference between this and the works of two decades later, such as Sepia Sojourn and Instars II, is that the simplified geometric shapes would become lush, painterly ones.

Although most of the 1967 series are landscapes without figures, there are some figural works, such as No. 725 and No. 178.

Watteau and Rococo (1968-1970)

The year of 1968 brought more freedom with the brush and a softening of the hard edges formerly seen. From works such as Semi-Abstract House and No. 600, Collazo moved to No. 743, an isolated gem of an abstract painting. Certain paintings suggest the influence of Watteau. No. 527 ["I Love Watteau"], a warm and soft-edged watercolor, is even inscribed "I Love Watteau". It seems to mark the beginning of his continuing infatuation with the French artist.

In 1969, Collazo created delicate drawings and watercolors that show the influence of Watteau or, at least, the eighteenth century French painters. Maiden is, perhaps, the finest of the pencil drawings. Among works of this period is a charming circus scene, The Performers Gesvaldo. In The Best from Vogue, figures are shown in elaborate, French Rococo costumes, a typical theme. Just how beguiling Collazo could be when a painting came tenderly from his heart is shown in No. 333. Such works are discussed separately in Early Rococo. The groups of figures, in some cases obviously inspired by Watteau's courtly garden scenes, capture la joi de vivre. The solitary figure took quite a different path; however, as subsequently explained.

Not only idyllic garden scenes, but fanciful Rococo interiors with arched openings leading from one room to another were common settings for Collazo's figures, as in Picture Box. He elaborated on the motif in 1979. However, the Rococo influences were to lead Collazo to an overly decorative style that he had to resist.

Abandoning Cubism (1971-1974)

After the first bout with Cubistic landscapes, the artist reverted to a conventional concept of space, while he experimented with other approaches. The Cubist lessons were long abandoned, but not forgotten.

In 1971, small paintings of Puerto Rico's green hills, such as No. 775 occupied the artist for a while, probably inspired by his visit to the island for the inauguration of his first one-person exhibition. The space in all of these works is strictly representational. No. 537, though atypical because of the interior and figure, is one of the most interesting and obviously inspired by the Italian masters.

By the next year, the landscapes became hard-edged and geometric; many with rectangular shapes reminiscent of Hans Hoffman's canvases. All are devoid of figuration. Key themes revolve around scientific exploration of distant places on and off Earth, and there is the vastness of space, never before depicted by Collazo. The most important painting is the ambitious Jansky's Aerial, whose subject is the first radio telescope. Arctic Probe seems to continue the mountain motif, but in a geometricized form with triangular shapes, while No. 186 transforms an abstract, rectangular composition into a Manhattan landscape, by adding the recognizable profile of the Empire State Building.

Afterwards, Collazo created a series of boxes inspired by Joseph Cornell (see: The Collages and Boxes of Raphael Collazo). Based on his subsequent work, it appears that Collazo then attended life drawing classes at the Art Students' League to ground his work more solidly in an understanding of the human figure. It would take another decade before his figures would speak forcefully to the viewer.

The Italian Masters and Grand Ambitions

From his visits to the Metropolitan Museum of Art when he was growing up, Collazo became quite conversant with the Italian masters.7 In 1986, the artist stated: "I am well versed in the Italian Masters from Cimabue to de Chirico and they have been a constant inspiration in my work." and "I use renaissance space, both atmospheric and geometric and strive for a grandeur of arrangement and gesture in my forms. By this I hope to achieve a timeless and limpid environment in which the eye can wander."8 In a 1987 interview, he mentions the "Italian masters of the quattrocento through the fifteen hundreds".9 And, in 1988, he stated: "The things I think a painting should achieve, in my era, or in any era, are in the Italian masters, from Cimabue to de Chirico, in Giotto, in Giorgione, Bellini..."10

The major effect of the Italian masters on Collazo seems to have been an ambition to create paintings worthy of that exalted tradition. However; in a few cases, more specific references can be found. Of these, The Annunciation, inspired by Leonardo da Vinci's painting of the same name (Annunciation, c. 1472-1475, tempera on wood, Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy) is the most obvious and best documented. Leonardo's fantastic trees, in particular, were to appear frequently in Collazo's landscapes. Collazo's Expressionist version is discussed below. A Scene From The Life of Giotto is based on that artist's The Vision of Anna (c. 1307, fresco, Arena Chapel, Padua, Italy). Others paintings where the influence of the Italian masters seem evident, if elusive to document, are Three Graces, set in an Arcadian landscape, The Ladies, in a dark and brooding one, and Italy for You, painted upon the artist's return from a June 1984 tour in Italy. Perhaps, it is not too great an exaggeration to describe The Jokers as Collazo's modern-day Mona Lisa.

Abstract Expressionist Prophecies (1975-1976)

The years of 1975 and 1976 were formative for Collazo, both personally and artistically. After 10 years of living with Acker-Gherardino, he asserted his independence by moving into this own apartment at 253 West 91st Street in Manhattan and living by himself for the first time in his life. Using the apartment as his studio, he began a series of paintings reflecting his assimilation of Abstract Expressionism. These were prophecies of his mature work, as Collazo later acknowledged.11 Among the Expressionists, Collazo was most attracted to Rauschenberg, then to de Kooning and Pollack:

"... when I was growing up in New York, I used to -- I remember liking Rauschenberg a lot and as a teenager and really looking -- and seeking his work out in the museums and -- and de Kooning and Jackson Pollack, I used to love his work. Especially Rauschenberg. It really meant a lot to me and I remember liking his work. Everything about it, the way he applied paint, the texture, the space, threw paint. That was very important: I realized that artists like that were smearing paint around and just getting in there with lots of paint."12

Collazo's figural works of this period include Left Behind For Cythera, 18th Century Abstract, Aurora Borealis, and Emergence. The stairs, zigzags, pole-like structure and Expressionist figure of Aurora Borealis seems to presage Nekofi Cerkafi. Landscapes include Southold Fen, By A River and Wadi Medani. By A River has a remarkable semblance to one of the artist's final paintings: A Bower.

Along with these significant achievements, the artist produced what might be called his "masterpieces": two paintings of hitherto unimagined size, which synthesized the diverse elements of his earlier work and completely new ones, such as a gigantic parrot and what has been described as the "ghost of a Giotto village".13

Collazo's advance to epic-sized canvases seems to call for an external stimulus. Perhaps, it was the inspiration of a trip to England and Europe in 1974. Or, perhaps, a feeling of independence in being on his own for the first time in his life. Or, perhaps, his alcoholism, which may have freed him from his inhibitions, but exerted a negative effect on his life and art until 1981. Likely, it was all three.

The two milestone works, the first revelation of the artist's grand ambitions, are Reality Being Too Thorny for My Great Being and The Annunciation, a homage to Leonardo. Acker-Gherardino commented on the importance of the latter painting in Collazo's body of work:

Unfortunately, the surprising promise of the "prophetic" paintings was not sustained; the artist himself failed to understand what he had accomplished. Indeed, at the time, he deemed some of the works of so little importance that he threw them out when moving from his studio in 1976. Fortunately, they were saved by Acker-Gherardino. The following two years seem to have been unproductive, with the artist producing only some minor Expressionist works on paper.

Rococo Frivolities (1979-1983)

While one might have expected a future of bold, expressionist abstractions; however, that did not come to pass. Instead, the artist's figures became elegantly-costumed ladies in flowery gardens or ornate interiors, harking back to the worst extravagances of the eighteenth century French painters. Proceeding neither from Watteau's moderation, delicacy nor tenderness of feeling, Collazo's canvases became elaborated to a prettiness that would have shamed even the most flagrant of the Rococo artists. He had to struggle continuously against his facility to create superficially "beautiful" paintings, in order to achieve a meaningful expression. But, at this time, he just couldn't resist the temptation. The figure continued to preoccupy him, but in a be-feathered or be-ribboned form, as in Blond Bronx and Bellezzata Calmata. Such works are discussed in more detail in Middle Rococo.

Characteristic of this period are interiors composed of a series of rooms with one or more arched openings leading from one room into another, sometimes creating an effect of infinity. The theme of this "arched interior", upon which Collazo now elaborated, had first occupied him in his collages of 1970.

In 1980, the artist temporarily regained his strength in the delightful portrait of Low Fat & Fish Eye and its companion piece Mrs. Low Fat. He honored his life-long companion, mentor and patron in Portrait of Ernest, a no-nonsense work with traces of Abstract Expressionism. Each work shows a variation of a simple arched interior. Such works, including a later series of Cornell-inspired boxes, are discussed separately in The Collages and Boxes of Raphael Collazo.

Once again, during 1983, the artist succumbed to the "beautiful" in a series of paintings depicting figures in flowery landscapes. One of the stronger pieces, unusual in its aquatic setting, is Aquaria. Although highly decorative, Collazo's canvases of this period do not fail to charm. The Astronomy Lesson, High Tea and Floribundia are enchanting and an apt reflection of Collazo's sweet personality. Such works are discussed separately in Late Rococo. The theme of Floribundia, the Roman goddess Flora in her realm of blossoming gardens, was to appear on a grand scale five years later in Realm of Flora, American Hybrid, evidencing that, after this period, the artist was able to avoid the ornamental.

What was Collazo's motivation in painting his "Rococo" works? In the announcement card for his 1984 exhibition, he explained:

"Formerly, my visions were fantasies of a longed-for past; or of huge rooms, when I actually lived in small; or of grandiose scenes, when I lived in squalor, paintings that in essence were an escape from an unsatisfactory and hurtful present: the need to work for a living and paint in my spare time.

With the good fortune of being able to paint full time, all my powers came into play: I was able to live in the present, not escape it, to include it in the kaleidoscope of my subject-matter."15

Fêtes Galantes and the Return of Expressionism (1984-1986)

The influence of Rococo was not altogether bad. In fact, the artist was able to refine its finest qualities into the "kaleidoscope" of his subject-matter, discarding the dross that had previously debilitated his work. The lasting influence of Watteau's fêtes galantes was benign.

From 1984, Collazo was able to devote all of his time to his art, allowing him to bring together the diverse elements that he had been experimenting with over the years: Cubism, Abstract Expressionism, the Italian masters and Rococo. At last, he was able to express his own true vision.

It is plain that the artist's hand was with the Abstract Expressionists and his heart with the French painters. Their enchanting pleasure gardens held great appeal for Collazo, and the mise en scène of his mature work owes much to Watteau's fêtes galantes. The adored French artist's influence is seen in Sardonyx, of 1984 (compare to The Swing, c. 1712, The Museum, Helsinki), although a painting by Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806), also called The Swing (c. 1765, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), is likely the direct inspiration for Collazo's version. Labyrinth, of 1984, is a lyrical garden scene with two figures. Both works show how the artist again embraced Abstract Expressionism: with a few, free, expressionist strokes of the brush, instead of realistic detail, he was now able to evoke the figure. The lessons learned earlier were dormant, not forgotten. What had been prophesied a decade before was soon to come to a triumphant realization.

The next year, in abrupt contrast to the well-tended and idyllic gardens, the landscapes became wild swamps or forests, as seen in The Magic is Back, and the panels grew to epic size. At this time, the artist definitively cast out the flowery Rococo sentiments in the painting Goodbye Rococo. From swamps and forests, in the Epic Tapestries series, the landscapes soon turned into exotic jungles, exemplified by Nymphal Instars II and Wing Venation, of the Nymphal Instars series. Of his approach to the landscape, Collazo wrote in 1986:

Nevertheless, after Collazo's furious bout of painting huge swamp, forest and jungle landscapes, the refined legacy of the French master returned. In Watteau Back, gowned figures converse in a lovely summer garden. Another work of 1986 that leaves no doubt as to its spiritual source is Sweet Dreams, even though an orange, deKooning-like figure appears to be making an entrance. Then, there's the monkey, reminiscent of Watteau's decorative panels with the same animal. Jumping ahead, Paradiso, of 1987, "resembles French garden scenes of the late 1700s with its topiary, edged shrubs, roses and even a mandolin".17 Later examples are Topiary, of 1988, and Model of Decorum, of 1989, which is based on Watteau's L'Indifférent (c. 1716, Louvre, Paris).

A New Cubism (1987-1988)

In the following series, the Early Healing Gardens, the artist made a complete break from his previous work. It's almost as if he stopped being an Expressionist and became a Cubist. In fact, the change was a conscious and painful, if heroic, effort by Collazo to advance his painting by not continuing to repeat the same success that he had achieved.18 Cubism, more sophisticated and now figurative, again defined the artist's space, as multiple landscape vignettes and figure-like shapes created a multitude of simultaneous, perspective views that, taken together, form a flat picture plane. Examples are Vermont and Arcadia, of 1987. In that year, the artist explained how his approach had changed:

"While still striving for a grandeur of arrangement in a timeless environment, I have now drawn back, so that what formerly occupied an entire canvas may now be only a segment of a larger landscape. I am paradoxically involved in a synthesis of modernist flatness with a simultaneous conveying of depth."19

A few months later, in the Middle Healing Gardens, such as A Healing Garden and For the Good of Us All, the figures have left the French gardens and Arcadias of this world, and have ascended into a heavenly realm. These works were consciously intended to have a healing effect on the viewer.20 Works of this period show the level of sophistication at which Collazo had arrived in evoking the human body with a few simple, abstract shapes.

In 1988, he painted All Souls' Day, which seems to affirm that the soul never perishes. Realm of Flora, American Hybrid is an ode to the Roman goddess of spring and flowering or blossoming plants, of bringing new life into the world. About these panels, he stated:

"My paintings have a landscape basis, with foreground, middle distance and sky. Aggregations of forms are like gatherings in a crowd, open areas in between, air passing through. Within this space I try to make something happen that will give the viewer, and myself, a whole and satisfying experience, lifting us out of everyday life by symbolizing something wonderful, a memory, or an expectation of what can be: Drama and anticipation, conveyed with paint, color, form."21

Existentialist Figuration (1989)

From 1984 through 1989, the artist created a large and consistent body of work. His figures at last transcended the representation of exterior forms and become abstract expressions of inner awareness and psychological states. As Collazo approached the premature end of his life, the solitary figure came to embody an existentialist pondering of its own being and destiny.

Flashes of psychological insight appeared first in Collazo's prophetic Left Behind For Cythera and later in the figure with its ghost-like apparition of Court, the radiant figure of Nervous Environment, the figure exploring the subterranean landscape of Arrival & Departure and in Elimination of Death, which shows "the spontaneous, almost chemical generation of a glittering tower of life, into the light of which a figure steps...".22

Three portraits of 1985 show how Collazo was analyzing the figure: 1985 Portfolio, Sheet 1, 1985 Portfolio, Sheet 2 and 1985 Portfolio, Sheet 27. These inward-looking pieces are in marked contrast to his representational figuration up until just two years before. More and more, in his final years, Collazo looked beyond the superficial appearance of the figure to the animating and physcological forces within. These realizations became the true subject matter of his art.

Gethsemane is a later, 1988, depiction of a solitary, Christ-like figure in an apocalyptic landscape of angels, demons and a fallen cross that may portend the fateful events of that place. Here, we do not seem to be looking at a figure so much, as into the depths of a soul.

Collazo's ultimate and most powerful existentialist expression did not come until the Transcendent series, of 1989, in paintings such as You Pushed Me, Fata Morgana, New World Rider and Bon Vivant. At the same time, the groups of figures maintained their joyous expression of life, as in Foris Pax, the standing figures in A Walk in the Woods, Concordia Domus and The Jokers.

Chronology1

1943. Raphael Angel Collazo was born on the 1st of August to Rafael Collazo and Marina Torres in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

1944. Mother and maternal grandmother left Puerto Rico and moved to New York's Lower East Side with Raphael. Father stayed in Puerto Rico, later remarried several times and had little involvement with family.2

1944-1954. Grew up on Lower East Side under mother's and maternal grandmother's guidance. Painted and drew "since he was a child".3

1955-1958. First studied art at Pratt Children's Art School when he was twelve.4 Also studied at Hudson Guild.5 Attended Junior High School 65, where he was spotted by art teacher Gitta Grail, who steered him to High School of Music and Art.6,7 Granted junior high school diploma, June 1958. Every two or three years from age of twelve throughout childhood, spent a couple of weeks during summer in Puerto Rico with mother's family, visiting father from time to time.8

1958-1960. Attended High School of Music and Art, New York.

1960-1961. Final year at High School of Music and Art. Awarded three-year scholarship to School of Visual Arts, New York.9 Elected member of high school's The Honor Art League. Won first prize for Girl in a Landscape in City-Wide High School Art Students' Painting Competition, New York. Americanized his given name from "Rafael" to "Raphael". Granted high school diploma, June 1961. At 17 years of age, was living at 146 Norfolk Street, New York.

1961-1964. Attended School of Visual Arts. Studied Fine Arts with George Ortman.10 Granted certificate, June 1964.

1965. Met life-long friend and lover, Ernest Acker-Gherardino.11,12 Moved to Upper West Side of Manhattan to share apartment with him. Except for 19751976, lived with Acker-Gherardino, an accomplished painter, at 255 West 88th Street in small penthouse overlooking city and painted there and, later, in 9th floor studio for rest of life.13 Throughout artist's career, Acker-Gherardino encouraged him in his painting, invented titles for his works, curated most of his exhibitions and, in 1984, became his patron.

1967-1976. Attended Art Students' League, New York and worked for a living. "...studied painting under Morris Kantor. This beloved master had a decisive influence on him, although he also acquired considerable skills and techniques of painting from Frank Mason, another famous League teacher."14 In 1974 or earlier, granted one-year Merit Scholarship. In 1975-1976 granted another Merit Scholarship and was first recipient of Morris Kantor Memorial Scholarship.15,16 Last two years of academic period marked by paintings now called Prophecies, heralding mature style [see Manuscripts: Ernest Acker-Gherardino, The Annunciation, 1984].

1968 or 1969. Acker-Gherardino bought barn in Southold, New York, which artist occasionally visited and where he stored much of his work throughout his life.17

1970. Visited England and Europe. Exhibited work "in Italy at the ruins of Busanna Vecchia and in Windsor, England..."18

1971. First one-person exhibition: Exhibición de Raphael Angel Collazo, Galería Santiago, San Juan, Puerto Rico, curated by Helene Santiago [see The Rococo Works of Raphael Collazo: Early Rococo and Jordan Massee, Statement for the Announcement Card of Exhibición de Raphael Angel Collazo, 1971].

Other references for Early Rococo:

Ernesto J. Ruiz De La Mata, Collazo, 1971

Antonio J. Molina, Raphael Collazo: Promising Young Artist, 1971

Antonio J. Molina, Rafael Collazo: Joven Artista Que Promete, 1971

Jordan Massee, Report on Candidate for Fellowship, American Academy in Rome, 1972

1972. One-person exhibition of hard-edge geometric paintings: On Air Facilities: Paintings by Raphael Collazo, Visual Arts Gallery, New York, curator unknown, featured Jansky's Aerial.

1972-1973. Created the Early Boxes [see The Collages and Boxes of Raphael Collazo].

1974. Visited England and Europe.19

1975. One-person exhibition: Raphael Collazo Paintings, 125 Prince Street, Inc., New York, curated by Marilyn Boteler.

Other reference:

Ernest Acker-Gherardino, Letter of Recommendation for Raphael Collazo, c. 1975-1976

1975-1976. Lived by himself at 253 West 91st Street, New York, before returning to live with Acker-Gherardino for rest of life.20

1977-1978. Painted in studio in Euclid Hall, 2345 Broadway, New York.21

1980. Painted in Studio 5, Broadway Studio Building, 2231 Broadway, New York.22 One-person exhibition: Ralph Collazo Paintings and Drawings, Victor Parker Gallery, New York, curated by Acker-Gherardino [see The Rococo Works of Raphael Collazo: Middle Rococo and Ernest Acker-Gherardino, Raphael Collazo, 1980].

1981. One-person exhibition: Raphael A. Collazo Collages & Boxes, Steve Bush Exhibit Room, New York, curated by Acker-Gherardino [see The Collages and Boxes of Raphael Collazo]. Met lover Roger Tiberii.23 Attended Alcoholics Anonymous and stopped drinking.24

1982. Received collection of Nymphal Instars specimens from Fitz Acker, Acker-Gherardino's brother, inspiring artist's fascination with insect forms, which later emerged in Nymphal Instars series of 1986.25 Roger Tiberii diagnosed with AIDS.26

1982-1983. Painted in studio in Euclid Hall, 2345 Broadway, New York.27

1983. One-person exhibition: Raphael Collazo Paintings, Steve Bush Exhibit Room, New York, curated by Acker-Gherardino [see The Rococo Works of Raphael Collazo: Late Rococo, Steve Bush (nom de plume of Ernest Acker-Gherardino), Raphael Collazo, 1983 and Manuscripts: Ernest Acker-Gherardino, The Annunciation, 1984]. Roger Tiberii died.28

1984. Acker-Gherardino became patron. Collazo stopped working for a living and devoted all of his energy to painting. In one year, created 56 paintings, primarily the Early Tapestries series. During June, toured Italy with Acker-Gherardino, visiting Rome and Venice.29 Upon return, painted Italy For You and Venezia per Tutti, beginning the Middle Tapestries series.

1984-1985. One-person exhibition of 34 paintings: Recuerdo (I Remember): The Paintings of Raphael Collazo, Art Lobby, New York, curated by Acker-Gherardino [see Raphael Collazo, Announcement Card of Recuerdo: I Remember, 1984]. First exhibition of mature work, now called Early Tapestries [see Manuscripts: Raphael Collazo, The Early Tapestries, 1984 and Ernest Acker-Gherardino, Hanging Ralph Collazo's Exhibition in Art Lobby, 1984]. Also included were the first two Middle Tapestries paintings, Italy For You and Venezia per Tutti. Subsequent Middle Tapestries and Late Tapestries replaced some earlier work during course of exhibition [see photo of Collazo with N.G.C. (New Galaxy Cataloged)].

Artist's Statement: Statement by Raphael A. Collazo, 1984

1985. Exhibited She Who Knows What Happened There in group exhibition NeoModern, curated by Rosemary C. Erpf, that inaugurated association with R. C. Erpf Gallery, New York. Painting is first of series now called Epic Tapestries [see photo of Collazo with Acker-Gherardino at opening].

1986. February and March: one-person exhibition, Raphael Collazo: New Work, R. C. Erpf Gallery, New York, curated by Rosemary C. Erpf. Exhibited paintings now called Epic Tapestries. November: one-person exhibition, Raphael Collazo: Recent Paintings and Drawings, R. C. Erpf Gallery, New York, curated by Rosemary C. Erpf [see Rosemary Cohane Erpf, Paintings and Drawings by Raphael Collazo at R.C. Erpf Gallery Opens Nov. 4, 1986]. Exhibited paintings now called Nymphal Instars.

Artist's Statement: Proposal Summary for Rome Prize Fellowship, 1986

1987. Stayed month of March 1987 at Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, Vermont. Painted Vermont, early painting in series now called Healing Gardens [see Manuscripts: Ernest Acker-Gherardino and Raphael Collazo, Interview with Raphael A. Collazo for Blue Food, 1987]. Won New York National Bank Exposition of 77 Latin artists. First prize for Landscape with Saint John the Baptist [see The Paintings of Raphael Collazo: Late Tapestries and Anonymous (El Vocero), Premian pintores boricuas, 1987]. Diagnosed for HIV in June 1987.30 Passing away of Fitz Acker and other friends inspired Middle Healing Gardens series [see Manuscripts: Ernest Acker-Gherardino and Raphael Collazo, Interview with Raphael A. Collazo for Blue Food, 1987].

Artist's Statement: Proposal Summary for Rome Prize Fellowship, 1987

1988. One-person exhibition of Healing Gardens at R. C. Erpf Gallery, New York, Winter 1988, curated by Rosemary C. Erpf.31 Gallery closed August 15, 1988, prompting artist to cease production of large works on panel.32,33

Artist's Statement: Proposal Summary for Rome Prize Fellowship, 1988

1989. Painted works now called Black Figures. Lived in studio in woods at Yaddo art colony, June 30-August 4, where he painted works now known as Yaddo paintings [see The Paintings of Raphael Collazo: Transcendence]. Fell ill shortly after returning from Yaddo and entered Roosevelt Hospital, New York.

1990. Died on January 4 of AIDS complications after months of hospitalization. Memorial exhibition: Healing Garden, Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art, New York, curated by Nilda M. Peraza [see Manuscripts: Rosemary Cohane Erpf, Raphael Collazo, 1990 and Ernest Acker-Gherardino, Living a life with Ralph..., 1990].

1992. Memorial retrospective: Raphael Collazo (1943-1990) Memorial Retrospective, The University of Arizona Museum of Art, Tucson, Arizona, curated by Peter Bermingham [see Manuscripts: Peter Bermingham, Essay for Raphael Collazo (1943-1990) Memorial Retrospective, 1992].

1994-1995. Memorial retrospective: Raphael Collazo (1943-1990) Exposición Retrospectiva, Museo de Arte e Historia de San Juan, San Juan, Puerto Rico, curated by Acker-Gherardino [see Manuscripts: Nilda M. Peraza, El Arte de Raphael Collazo: Ruptura y Reconciliación, 1994].

1995. Acker-Gherardino fell ill of undiagnosed disease. Raphael Collazo (1943-1990), State University of New York Albany Museum of Art, Albany, New York. "A recent gift of four large paintings from Mr. William A. Small to the University at Albany Foundation Collection" [see Gina Granald, curatorial student intern, Essay for Raphael Collazo (1943-1990), 1995]. After brief hospitalization, Acker-Gherardino died on June 5 of AIDS complications.

Other reference:

Amy Lozano, UAMA intern, Raphael Collazo, 1995

Manuscripts

The Annunciation
Ernest Acker-Gherardino, 1984

The Early Tapestries
Raphael Collazo, 1984

Hanging Ralph Collazo's Exhibition in Art Lobby
Ernest Acker-Gherardino, 1984

Interview with Raphael A. Collazo for Blue Food
Ernest Acker-Gherardino and Raphael Collazo, 1987

Raphael Collazo
Rosemary Cohane Erpf, 1990

Essay for Raphael Collazo (1943-1990) Memorial Retrospective
Peter Bermingham, 1992

The Art of Raphael Collazo: Rupture and Reconciliation
Nilda M. Peraza, 1994
English Spanish

Reflections about Raphael Collazo's Work
José Antonio Pérez Ruiz, 1999
English Spanish

One-Person Exhibitions (1984-Present)

Raphael Collazo: The Excitement of Paint
Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, Arizona
October 2, 2006-February 5, 2007
Curated by Julie Sasse

Raphael Collazo (1943-1990) Exposición Retrospectiva
Museo de Arte e Historia de San Juan, San Juan, Puerto Rico
December 14, 1994-March 11, 1995
Curated by Ernest Acker-Gherardino

Raphael Collazo (1943-1990) Memorial Retrospective
University of Arizona Museum of Art, Tucson, Arizona
October 4-November 22, 1992
Curated by Peter Bermingham

Healing Garden
Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art, New York
March 23-April 14, 1990
Curated by Nilda M. Peraza

Raphael Collazo: Healing Gardens [title unknown]
R. C. Erpf Gallery, New York
Winter 1988
Curated by Rosemary C. Erpf

Raphael Collazo: Recent Paintings and Drawings
R. C. Erpf Gallery, New York
November 4-29, 1986
Curated by Rosemary C. Erpf

Raphael Collazo: New Work
R. C. Erpf Gallery, New York
February 15-March 13, 1986
Curated by Rosemary C. Erpf

Recuerdo (I Remember): The Paintings of Raphael Collazo
Art Lobby, New York
September 29-December 31, 1984, extended through April 18, 1985
Curated by Ernest Acker-Gherardino

Museum Collections

Colección de las Artes, Sistema de Bibliotecas
Universidad de Puerto Rico, Recinto de Río Piedras
San Juan, Puerto Rico

The Colección de las Artes preserves an archive of the artist's documents and 187 works on paper. A selection of the works on paper follows:

Chinese Landscape, c. 1969
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

The Performers Gesvaldo, c. 1969
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of Martin Haggland

Lady Lovely & Lover [believed to be artist's title], c. 1969
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

The Best from Vogue, c. 1970
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Palace Theater, c. 1970
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Grid of Twelve Collages [Estate title], c. 1973
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

18th Century Abstract, 1975
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Knoll [Estate title], 1978
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Low Fat & Fish Eye, c. 1980
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Mrs. Low Fat [companion to Low Fat & Fish Eye], c. 1980
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Rococo Holiday [Estate title], c. 1983
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Verandah [Estate title], c. 1983
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Maze Sketch [Estate title], 1984
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Furnished Landscape Sketch, [Estate title] 1984
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of Martin Haggland

The Anxious Rate of the Heart Sketch [Estate title], c. 1985
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of Martin Haggland

1985 Portfolio, Sheet 1 [Estate title], c. 1985
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

1985 Portfolio, Sheet 2 [Estate title], c. 1985
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

1985 Portfolio, Sheet 20 [Estate title], c. 1985
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

1985 Portfolio, Sheet 21 [Estate title], c. 1985
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

1985 Portfolio, Sheet 22 [Estate title], c. 1985
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

1985 Portfolio, Sheet 23 [Estate title], c. 1985
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

1985 Portfolio, Sheet 27 [Estate title], c. 1985
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Notebook B: Spread 20 [Estate title], c. 1985
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Notebook D: Leaf 6 [Estate title], c. 1985
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Sea Lion [Estate title], c. 1985
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Birth of a Soul [Estate title], c. 1985
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Seated Angel [Estate title], c. 1985
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Morris, c. 1985
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Voyage of Odysseus [Estate title], c. 1985
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Spontaneous Generation [Estate title], 1986
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Sea Bottom [Estate title], 1986
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Two Figures in a Landscape [Estate title], c. 1986
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Kwainin, c. 1986
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Echo of Guernica [Estate title], c. 1986
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Mini Veduta, c. 1986
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Swamp, c. 1986
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Bug World Series #1, c. 1986
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Seining, 1986
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Untitled, 1986
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

The Sowers [Estate title], c. 1986
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Flora & Fauna [Estate title], c. 1986
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Primordial Dawn [Estate title], c. 1986
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Sweet Dreams, 1986
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of Martin Haggland

Watteau Angel, 1987
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Angel Back [believed to be artist's title], c. 1987
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Angel Series I, 1987
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Angel Series III, 1988
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Birds n' Beaks, 1988
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Angel Series II [believed to be artist's title], c. 1988
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Levitation, 1988
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

The Hispanic Society of America Museum
New York

Memory of a Dream [Estate title], c. 1985
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Blue Spiral [Estate title], c. 1985
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Delicate Structure [Estate title], c. 1985
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Jabberwocky [Estate title], c. 1985
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Remembrance of Hoffman [Estate title], c. 1985
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Amphora [Estate title], c. 1985
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of Martin Haggland

Vermont, 1987
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña
San Juan, Puerto Rico

Archeology, 1985
In memory of Raphael Collazo, gift of Martin Haggland

Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico
San Juan, Puerto Rico

Determined Personage, 1989
In memory of Raphael Collazo, gift of Martin Haggland

Museo de Arte de Ponce
Ponce, Puerto Rico

The Annunciation, c. 1976
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Veduta, 1985
In memory of Raphael Collazo, gift of Martin Haggland

Complete Metamorphes, 1986
In memory of Raphael Collazo, gift of Martin Haggland

Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico
San Juan, Puerto Rico

Instars II [Estate title], 1986
In memory of Raphael Collazo, gift of his friends

Museo de Historia, Antropología y Arte
Universidad de Puerto Rico, Recinto de Río Piedras
San Juan, Puerto Rico

Everything in Life, c. 1980
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Rampage, 1984
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Conspiracy, 1984
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Premonition, 1984
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Pure of Heart [Estate title], 1984
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Cotton Picker, 1984
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Swamp Juice, 1984
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Venezia per Tutti, 1984
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

The Anxious Rate of the Heart, 1984
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of Martin Haggland

El Museo del Barrio
New York

Dream Street, 1970
Donor unknown

A Menacing Variation on an Amusement Park Theme, 1984
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

So Lonely Since You Went Away, 1984
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. William A. Small, Jr.

Bushwick Park, 1985
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Landscape with Saint John the Baptist, 1985
Gift of New York National Bank

Museum of New Mexico, Museum of Fine Arts
Santa Fe, New Mexico

Bug World, 1986
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. William A. Small, Jr.

New Britain Museum of American Art
New Britain, Connecticut

From a Woman's Heart, 1985
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Bramble [Estate title], 1986
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Bon Vivant Sketch [Estate title], c. 1989
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

The Parrish Art Museum
Southampton, New York

Contention, c. 1986
In memory of Raphael Collazo, gift of his friends

Nest [Estate title], c. 1986
In memory of Raphael Collazo, gift of his friends

State University of New York Albany Museum of Art
Albany, New York

How to Draw & Paint, 1985
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. William A. Small, Jr.

Fast Forward, 1986
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. William A. Small, Jr.

Realm of Flora, American Hybrid, 1988
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. William A. Small, Jr.

Topiary, 1988
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. William A. Small, Jr.

Tampa Art Museum
Tampa, Florida

Woman in the Bronx, 1988
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. William A. Small, Jr.

Tucson Museum of Art
Tucson, Arizona

Wadi Medani, c. 1975
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Aurora Borealis, c. 1976
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Labyrinth [Estate title], 1984
In memory of Raphael Collazo, gift of Martin Haggland

Spirit of Ohm, 1984
In memory of Raphael Collazo, gift of Martin Haggland

Pillars of Wisdom, 1984
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

The Beginning of Time, 1984
In memory of Raphael Collazo, gift of Martin Haggland

Style of the Month, 1985
In memory of Raphael Collazo, gift of Martin Haggland

Rare Times, 1985
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Nekofi Cerkafi, 1985
In memory of Raphael Collazo, gift of Martin Haggland

A Hundred Years in New York, 1985
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Terrible Lizards, 1985
In memory of Raphael Collazo, gift of Martin Haggland

Destructure, c. 1985
In memory of Raphael Collazo, gift of Martin Haggland

Lady of the Swamp, 1985
In memory of Raphael Collazo, gift of Martin Hagglan

She Who Knows What Happened There, 1985
In memory of Raphael Collazo, gift of Martin Haggland

Bug Out, 1986
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. William A. Small, Jr.

Sepia Sojourn, 1986
In memory of Raphael Collazo, gift of Martin Haggland

Paseo, 1987
In memory of Raphael Collazo, gift of Martin Haggland

Friends & Relatives, c. 1987
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Aggregations, c. 1987
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of Martin Haggland

For the Good of Us All, 1987
Gift of Riva Yares

All Souls' Day, 1988
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Lepidoptera, 1987
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Fold-a-Roll, 1988
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Passage, 1988
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Passages I, 1988
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Poseur, 1989
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

The University of Arizona Museum of Art
Tucson, Arizona

Swaneria: Marina's Dream, c. 1972
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends. L93.2.1

Arc (K), 1985
In memory of Peter Bermingham, gift of the Tucson Museum of Art

Goodbye Rococo, 1985
Museum Purchase with funds provided by the Edward J. Gallagher, Jr.
Memorial Fund. 87.26.1a-b

Paradiso (Paseo), 1987
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. William A. Small, Jr. 95.13.11

Man in China, 1988
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. William A. Small, Jr. 95.13.12

You Pushed Me (Devonian Times), 1989
Museum Purchase with funds provided by the Edward J. Gallagher, Jr.
Memorial Fund. 92.32.1a-c

The Jokers, 1989
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

The University of Utah, Utah Museum of Fine Arts
Salt Lake City, Utah

Untitled, 1986-87, 1987
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. William A. Small, Jr.

Yaddo
Saratoga Springs, New York

Foris Pax, 1989
In memory of Ernest Acker-Gherardino, gift of his friends

Source Materials and Notes

Source Materials

This catalog is based on the author's personal acquaintance with Raphael Collazo and with Ernest Acker-Gherardino from 1979 onward. While I was viewing Collazo's paintings with Acker-Gherardino in a barn in Southold, New York in April 1994; he suggested an analysis of the work into series, which was partially confirmed by his curatorial notes later that year for the 1994-1995 retrospective at the Museo de Arte e Historia de San Juan in Puerto Rico. That basic framework has been substantially augmented.

Details derive from the author's analysis of Collazo's slides and photos, snapshots and videos of his exhibitions, announcement cards, exhibition lists, catalogs, artistic statements, newspaper articles, gallery transmittals and sales documents. These materials were collected by Kay Acker, a friend of the artist and Acker-Gherardino's sister-in-law, from Collazo's apartment in New York and from the Southold barn, where he had stored most of his work during the last twenty years of his life.

All of the materials, including the documents referenced in the notes below, have been donated by Raphael Collazo Foundation to the Colección de las Artes, Sistema de Bibliotecas, Universidad de Puerto Rico, Recinto de Río Piedras, San Juan, Puerto Rico. They have been cataloged by the library system and are now available for study and analysis to anyone interested in researching the visual arts of Puerto Rico.

The author made diligent efforts to obtain information from Rosemary C. Erpf, the dealer who had represented the artist during the important late 1985-1988 period. However, Erpf did not provide any documentation. The trustees later discovered in the barn a copy of the manuscript that she had written for the unpublished catalog of the memorial exhibition: Healing Garden, Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art, New York, March 23-April 14, 1990, curated by Nilda M. Peraza [see Manuscripts: Raphael Collazo, Rosemary Cohane Erpf, 1990].

Additionally, between May 1996 and November 1998, with Kay Acker, the author directed photo documentation of the vast majority of Collazo's known works, including those formerly in the artist's apartment, in the barn, in eight museums and in seven private collections. More than 700 paintings, works on paper, collages, assemblages and sketches were photographed. At most of the photo sessions (except in the museums and in two private collections), the author had the opportunity to examine each work and record its medium, size and any title, date or notation.

The information collected by all of the means described above was entered into a computer database. If the title of a work was unknown, or perhaps never given, one was devised in the spirit of the original titles, which usually were conceived by Acker-Gherardino. The newly devised titles are noted as "Estate title". If the date of a work could not be documented, as was frequently the case, a date was assigned based on the similarity of its style to other works. Such dates are noted as "c." (circa). This method appears to be valid because Collazo tended to work in a consistent style for about six months and did not repeat himself at a later time. In some cases, especially for works in a series, the medium and dimensions, if unknown, were assigned by the same method. Dimensions that are uncertain also are noted as "c."

When completed, the database contained all of the known facts and educated guesses about each work, and allowed the author to sort by date, giving a clearer understanding of the works pertaining to each stylistic series and of Collazo's artistic development. The database, which contains an exhibition history and biographical information, also is the source for the indices, chronology, list of one-person exhibitions and record of works in museum collections. It may be viewed at the Colección de las Artes, Sistema de Bibliotecas, Universidad de Puerto Rico.

The Paintings of Raphael Collazo: Notes

1 Ernest Acker-Gherardino curated most of the artist's exhibitions except those of late 1985-1988, at which time Collazo was represented by the R. C. Erpf Gallery of New York (see Raphael Collazo: New Work, February 15-March 13, 1986, Raphael Collazo: Recent Paintings and Drawings, November 4-29, 1986 and Raphael Collazo: Healing Gardens, 1988, all curated by Rosemary C. Erpf); the memorial exhibition: Healing Garden, Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art, New York, March 23-April 14, 1990, curated by Nilda M. Peraza; and the retrospective: Raphael Collazo (1943-1990) Memorial Retrospective, University of Arizona Museum of Art, Tucson, Arizona, October 4-November 22, 1992, curated by Peter Bermingham.

2 "Known" works are those for which the work itself or a complete visual reference has been located. The known, mature work consists of 119 paintings on canvas or wood panel, of which 11 are missing and 184 works on paper (notably the 30 painting-like works on paper of the Healing Gardens series), of which 3 are missing. Not in this count are works known only by partial visual reference (3 painting-like works on paper of the Early Healing Gardens series), only by title (1 painting of the Middle Healing Gardens series, probably Lepidoptera) or only by mention in the artist's copies of gallery sales documents (26 works on paper, most if not all of the Nymphal Instars series); nor minor works on paper; nor early states of works (6 paintings), even if exhibited. Selected early states are detailed in the indices.

3 José Antonio Pérez Ruiz, Reflections about Raphael Collazo's Work, San Juan, Puerto Rico, October 1999, catalog, Profound Domains, Galería Matices, Hato Rey, Puerto Rico, December 7, 1999-January 8, 2000, curated by José Antonio Pérez Ruiz. Translated from Spanish by Marisol Uzal and Martin Haggland.

4 Raphael Collazo, announcement card, Recuerdo (I Remember): The Paintings of Raphael Collazo, Art Lobby, New York, September 29-December 31, 1984, extended through April 18, 1985, curated by Ernest Acker-Gherardino.

5 Steve Bush [nom de plume of Ernest Acker-Gherardino], unpublished manuscript, "Excerpt from the Steve Bush article on Raphael A. Collazo's Annunciation in November '84 issue of Blue Food art magazine", New York, 1984.

6 E. Acker [Ernest Acker-Gherardino], unpublished manuscript, Hanging Ralph Collazo's Exhibition in Art Lobby, New York, 1984.

7 Raphael Collazo, proposal summary for Rome Prize Fellowship, New York, November 11, 1986, referring to Cimabue (Cenni di Pepo, called Cimabue, c. 1240-c. 1302) and Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978). From his childhood onward, frequent visits to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (where he delighted in making a donation of one penny) gave the artist a first-hand acquaintance with the Italian masters.

8 Raphael Collazo, proposal summary for Rome Prize Fellowship, New York, November 1988.

9 E. Acker [Ernest Acker-Gherardino], unpublished manuscript, Hanging Ralph Collazo's Exhibition in Art Lobby, New York, 1984.

10 Ibid.

11 Ibid.

12 Raphael Collazo, Statement by Raphael A. Collazo, New York, 1984.

13 José Antonio Pérez Ruiz, Reflections about Raphael Collazo's Work, San Juan, Puerto Rico, October 1999, catalog, Profound Domains, Galería Matices, Hato Rey, Puerto Rico, December 7, 1999-January 8, 2000, curated by José Antonio Pérez Ruiz. Translated from Spanish by Marisol Uzal and Martin Haggland.

14 Amy Lozano, UAMA intern, news report, Raphael Collazo, Collections column, The University of Arizona Museum of Art museum notes, Tucson, Arizona, Spring 1995.

15 Peter Bermingham, catalog, Raphael Collazo (1943-1990) Memorial Retrospective, University of Arizona Museum of Art, Tucson, Arizona, October 4-November 22, 1992, curated by Peter Bermingham.

16 Raphael Collazo, proposal summary for Rome Prize Fellowship, New York, November 11, 1986.

17 Raphael Collazo, proposal summary for Rome Prize Fellowship, New York, November 10, 1987.

18 Ibid.

19 Ernest Acker-Gherardino and Raphael Collazo, unpublished manuscript, Interview with Raphael A. Collazo for Blue Food, New York, 1987, as transcribed by Acker-Gherardino from a recording.

20 Raphael Collazo, proposal summary for Rome Prize Fellowship, New York, November 1988.

21 Nilda M. Peraza, The Art of Raphael Collazo: Rupture and Reconciliation, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1994, catalog, Raphael Collazo (1943-1990) Exposición Retrospectiva, Museo de Arte e Historia de San Juan, San Juan, Puerto Rico, December 14, 1994-March 11, 1995, curated by Ernest Acker-Gherardino. Translated from Spanish by Marisol Uzal and Martin Haggland.

22 José Antonio Pérez Ruiz, Reflections about Raphael Collazo's Work, San Juan, Puerto Rico, October 1999, catalog, Profound Domains, Galería Matices, Hato Rey, Puerto Rico, December 7, 1999-January 8, 2000, curated by José Antonio Pérez Ruiz. Translated from Spanish by Marisol Uzal and Martin Haggland.

23 Rosemary C. Erpf, manuscript, Raphael Collazo, New York, March 1990, written for the unpublished catalog of the memorial exhibition Healing Garden, Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art, New York, March 23-April 14, 1990, curated by Nilda M. Peraza.

24 Ernest Acker-Gherardino and Raphael Collazo, unpublished manuscript, Interview with Raphael A. Collazo for Blue Food, New York, 1987, as transcribed by Acker-Gherardino from a recording.

25 E. Acker [Ernest Acker-Gherardino], unpublished manuscript, Hanging Ralph Collazo's Exhibition in Art Lobby, New York, 1984.

26 Martin Haggland, The Rococo Works of Raphael Collazo, New York, 1999.

27 José Antonio Pérez Ruiz, Reflections about Raphael Collazo's Work, San Juan, Puerto Rico, October 1999, catalog, Profound Domains, Galería Matices, Hato Rey, Puerto Rico, December 7, 1999-January 8, 2000, curated by José Antonio Pérez Ruiz. Translated from Spanish by Marisol Uzal and Martin Haggland.

28 Nilda M. Peraza, The Art of Raphael Collazo: Rupture and Reconciliation, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1994, catalog, Raphael Collazo (1943-1990) Exposición Retrospectiva, Museo de Arte e Historia de San Juan, San Juan, Puerto Rico, December 14, 1994-March 11, 1995, curated by Ernest Acker-Gherardino. Translated from Spanish by Marisol Uzal and Martin Haggland.

The Collages and Boxes of Raphael Collazo: Notes

1 Ernesto J. Ruiz De La Mata, Collazo, Sunday San Juan Star Magazine, page 14, San Juan, Puerto Rico, February 14, 1971.

2 Ernest Acker-Gherardino, letter of recommendation for Raphael Collazo, probably for Art Students' League Merit Scholarship, New York, c. 1975-1976.

3 Steve Bush [nom de plume of Ernest Acker-Gherardino], unpublished manuscript, "Excerpt from the Steve Bush article on Raphael A. Collazo's Annunciation in November '84 issue of Blue Food art magazine", New York, 1984.

4 Ibid.

5 Rosemary C. Erpf, manuscript, Raphael Collazo, New York, March 1990, written for the unpublished catalog of the memorial exhibition Healing Garden, Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art, New York, March 23-April 14, 1990, curated by Nilda M. Peraza.

6 Ibid.

7 Ibid.

The Rococo Works of Raphael Collazo: Notes

1 Exhibición de Raphael Angel Collazo, Galería Santiago, San Juan, Puerto Rico, February 5-19, 1971, curated by Helene Santiago. See:

Jordan Massee, Statement for the Announcement Card of Exhibición de Raphael Angel Collazo, 1971

Ernesto J. Ruiz De La Mata, Collazo, 1971

Antonio J. Molina, Raphael Collazo: Promising Young Artist, 1971

Antonio J. Molina, Rafael Collazo: Joven Artista Que Promete, 1971

2 Raphael Collazo, announcement card, Recuerdo (I Remember): The Paintings of Raphael Collazo, Art Lobby, New York, September 29-December 31, 1984, extended through April 18, 1985, curated by Ernest Acker-Gherardino.

3 Ernest Acker-Gherardino, statement, Raphael Collazo, New York, 1980, for the exhibition Ralph Collazo Paintings and Drawings, Victor Parker Gallery, New York, March 6-March 31, 1980, curated by Acker-Gherardino.

4 Steve Bush, [nom de plume of Ernest Acker-Gherardino], statement, Raphael Collazo, New York, 1983, for the exhibition Raphael Collazo Paintings, Steve Bush Exhibit Room, New York, September 16-October 15, 1983, curated by Acker-Gherardino.

5 E. Acker [Ernest Acker-Gherardino], unpublished manuscript, Hanging Ralph Collazo's Exhibition in Art Lobby, New York, 1984.

6 Rosemary C. Erpf, manuscript, Raphael Collazo, New York, March 1990, written for the unpublished catalog of the memorial exhibition Healing Garden, Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art, New York, March 23-April 14, 1990, curated by Nilda M. Peraza.

7 Ibid.

8 Peter Bermingham, catalog, Raphael Collazo (1943-1990) Memorial Retrospective, University of Arizona Museum of Art, Tucson, Arizona, October 4-November 22, 1992, curated by Peter Bermingham.

9 Rosemary C. Erpf, manuscript, Raphael Collazo, New York, March 1990, written for the unpublished catalog of the memorial exhibition Healing Garden, Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art, New York, March 23-April 14, 1990, curated by Nilda M. Peraza.

10 Raphael Collazo, proposal summary for Rome Prize Fellowship, New York, November 10, 1987.

11 Amy Lozano, UAMA intern, news report, Raphael Collazo, Collections column, The University of Arizona Museum of Art museum notes, Tucson, Arizona, Spring 1995.

12 Raphael Collazo, proposal summary for Rome Prize Fellowship, New York, November 1988.

13 Rosemary C. Erpf, manuscript, Raphael Collazo, New York, March 1990, written for the unpublished catalog of the memorial exhibition Healing Garden, Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art, New York, March 23-April 14, 1990, curated by Nilda M. Peraza.

The Mature Works on Paper of Raphael Collazo: Notes

1 Rosemary C. Erpf, manuscript, Raphael Collazo, New York, March 1990, written for the unpublished catalog of the memorial exhibition Healing Garden, Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art, New York, March 23-April 14, 1990, curated by Nilda M. Peraza.

2 Ernest Acker-Gherardino and Raphael Collazo, unpublished manuscript, Interview with Raphael A. Collazo for Blue Food, New York, 1987, as transcribed by Acker-Gherardino from a recording.

The Figure in the Art of Raphael Collazo: Notes

1 Ernest Acker-Gherardino and Raphael Collazo, unpublished manuscript, Interview with Raphael A. Collazo for Blue Food, New York, 1987, as transcribed by Acker-Gherardino from a recording.

2 Raphael Collazo, proposal summary for Rome Prize Fellowship, New York, November 11, 1986.

3 Ernest Acker-Gherardino and Raphael Collazo, unpublished manuscript, Interview with Raphael A. Collazo for Blue Food, New York, 1987, as transcribed by Acker-Gherardino from a recording.

4 Ernest Acker-Gherardino, letter of recommendation for Raphael Collazo, probably for Art Students' League Merit Scholarship, New York, c. 1975-1976.

5 Bhagwan Kapoor, statement to author, New York, April 13, 2002 and before.

6 Raphael Collazo, proposal summary for Rome Prize Fellowship, New York, November 10, 1987.

7 Ernest Acker-Gherardino and Raphael Collazo, unpublished manuscript, Interview with Raphael A. Collazo for Blue Food, New York, 1987, as transcribed by Acker-Gherardino from a recording.

8 Raphael Collazo, proposal summary for Rome Prize Fellowship, New York, November 11, 1986.

9 Ernest Acker-Gherardino and Raphael Collazo, unpublished manuscript, Interview with Raphael A. Collazo for Blue Food, New York, 1987, as transcribed by Acker-Gherardino from a recording.

10 Raphael Collazo, proposal summary for Rome Prize Fellowship, New York, November 1988.

11 Raphael Collazo, announcement card, Recuerdo (I Remember): The Paintings of Raphael Collazo, Art Lobby, New York, September 29-December 31, 1984, extended through April 18, 1985, curated by Ernest Acker-Gherardino.

12 Ernest Acker-Gherardino and Raphael Collazo, unpublished manuscript, Interview with Raphael A. Collazo for Blue Food, New York, 1987, as transcribed by Acker-Gherardino from a recording.

13 Ernest Acker-Gherardino, statement, Raphael Collazo, New York, 1980, for the exhibition Ralph Collazo Paintings and Drawings, Victor Parker Gallery, New York, March 6-March 31, 1980, curated by Acker-Gherardino.

14 Steve Bush [nom de plume of Ernest Acker-Gherardino], unpublished manuscript, "Excerpt from the Steve Bush article on Raphael A. Collazo's Annunciation in November '84 issue of Blue Food art magazine", New York, 1984.

15 Raphael Collazo, announcement card, Recuerdo (I Remember): The Paintings of Raphael Collazo, Art Lobby, New York, September 29-December 31, 1984, extended through April 18, 1985, curated by Ernest Acker-Gherardino.

16 Raphael Collazo, proposal summary for Rome Prize Fellowship, New York, November 11, 1986.

17 Amy Lozano, UAMA intern, news report, Raphael Collazo, Collections column, The University of Arizona Museum of Art museum notes, Tucson, Arizona, Spring 1995.

18 Raphael Collazo, statement to author, New York, c. early 1987.

19 Raphael Collazo, proposal summary for Rome Prize Fellowship, New York, November 10, 1987.

20 Ernest Acker-Gherardino and Raphael Collazo, unpublished manuscript, Interview with Raphael A. Collazo for Blue Food, New York, 1987, as transcribed by Acker-Gherardino from a recording.

21 Raphael Collazo, proposal summary for Rome Prize Fellowship, New York, November 1988.

22 E. Acker [Ernest Acker-Gherardino], unpublished manuscript, Hanging Ralph Collazo's Exhibition in Art Lobby, New York, 1984.

Chronology: Notes

1 Group exhibitions are not included in the chronology. For all known exhibitions, see Martin Haggland, Raphael Collazo: Catalogue Raisonné, Raphael Collazo Foundation, New York, 2001.

2 Marina Torres (artist's mother), statement to author, New York, 1997.

3 Steve Bush, [nom de plume of Ernest Acker-Gherardino], statement, Raphael Collazo, New York, 1983, for the exhibition Raphael Collazo Paintings, Steve Bush Exhibit Room, New York, September 16-October 15, 1983, curated by Acker-Gherardino.

4 Ernest Acker-Gherardino, statement, Raphael Collazo, New York, 1980, for the exhibition Ralph Collazo Paintings and Drawings, Victor Parker Gallery, New York, March 6-March 31, 1980, curated by Acker-Gherardino.

5 Steve Bush, [nom de plume of Ernest Acker-Gherardino], statement, Raphael Collazo, New York, 1983, for the exhibition Raphael Collazo Paintings, Steve Bush Exhibit Room, New York, September 16-October 15, 1983, curated by Acker-Gherardino.

6 Ernest Acker-Gherardino, statement, Raphael Collazo, New York, 1980, for the exhibition Ralph Collazo Paintings and Drawings, Victor Parker Gallery, New York, March 6-March 31, 1980, curated by Acker-Gherardino.

7 Steve Bush, [nom de plume of Ernest Acker-Gherardino], statement, Raphael Collazo, New York, 1983, for the exhibition Raphael Collazo Paintings, Steve Bush Exhibit Room, New York, September 16-October 15, 1983, curated by Acker-Gherardino.

8 Marina Torres (artist's mother), statements to author, New York, April 13 and May 6, 1998.

9 Silas H. Rhodes (director, School of Visual Arts), letter, New York, March 1, 1961.

10 Antonio J. Molina, Raphael Collazo: Promising Young Artist, El Mundo, page 6-B, San Juan, Puerto Rico, Friday, February 19, 1971, as translated from Spanish by Collazo with minor editing by the author.

11 Tom Miller, statement to author, New York, 1997.

12 Kay Acker, statement to author, New York, 1997.

13 Ibid. (regarding the dates that the artist did not live with Acker-Gherardino).

14 Steve Bush, [nom de plume of Ernest Acker-Gherardino], statement, Raphael Collazo, New York, 1983, for the exhibition Raphael Collazo Paintings, Steve Bush Exhibit Room, New York, September 16-October 15, 1983, curated by Acker-Gherardino.

15 Ernest Acker-Gherardino, statement, Raphael Collazo, New York, 1980, for the exhibition Ralph Collazo Paintings and Drawings, Victor Parker Gallery, New York, March 6-March 31, 1980, curated by Acker-Gherardino.

16 Ernest Acker-Gherardino, Summary of Art Education and Exhibits, New York, 1984 (regarding 1975-1976 dates of scholarships).

17 Kay Acker, statement to author, New York, 1997 (regarding the purchase date of the barn).

18 Raphael Collazo, unpublished statement, Raphael Collazo, New York, c. 1983.

19 Rosalind Shaw, statement to author, London-New York telephone conversation, 2000.

20 Kay Acker, statement to author, New York, 1997 (regarding the dates that the artist lived by himself).

21 Ernest Acker-Gherardino, press release, Recuerdo (I Remember): The Paintings of Raphael Collazo, Art Lobby, New York, September 29-December 31, 1984, extended through April 18, 1985, curated by Ernest Acker-Gherardino.

22 Martin Haggland, recollection of artist painting Fish Lips in Studio 5, Broadway Studio Building, 2231 Broadway, New York, 1980.

23 Tom Miller, statement to author, New York, 1997.

24 Kay Acker, statement to author, New York, 1997.

25 Ibid. (regarding the date that the artist received collection of Nymphal Instar specimens).

26 Kay Acker, statement to author, New York, 1997.

27 Ernest Acker-Gherardino, press release, Recuerdo (I Remember): The Paintings of Raphael Collazo, Art Lobby, New York, September 29-December 31, 1984, extended through April 18, 1985, curated by Ernest Acker-Gherardino.

28 Kay Acker, statement to author, New York, 1997.

29 Martin Haggland, recollection, New York, 1997.

30 Kay Acker, statement to author, New York, 1997.

31 Rosemary C. Erpf, letter to author, New York, August 15, 1999 and telephone conversation, New York, August 19, 1999.

32 Rosemary C. Erpf, letter announcing closure of gallery, New York, August 15, 1988.

33 Tom Miller, statement to author, New York, May 3, 1997 (regarding the cease in production of large works on panel).

Raphael Collazo Foundation

Web Site
The 162 works of art mentioned in the main text and an additional 133 works listed in the Catalogue Raisonné may be viewed on this web site.

Contact

Martin Haggland, Director

Raphael Collazo Foundation

2345 Broadway, Suite 638, New York, NY 10024

Tel: 212.787.0500, Fax: 212.787.5484

E-mail: director@collazo.org

Credits

Web site by Martin Haggland, New York, NY

Photography by Steve Bates, Cold Spring, NY

Copyright Notice

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