About the Artist

Using oil paints as a mode of self-expression has been Bob Crimi's impluse since he apprenticed with his uncle, Alfred Crimi, fresco muralist and easel painter, in the Greenwich Village of the late 1950s.

The innovative power of the arts during the 1950s in New York City was an undeniable phenomenon. Bob Crimi was playing in the same sandbox, albeit with a smaller shovel, with Willem DeKooning, Franz Kline, John Coltranes, Thelonious Monk, and Jack Kerouac. As a fledgling artist, that environment of individual expression was mortar for Bob to build a strong foundation.

These courageous spirits, with there actions, were fearlessly tapping the life source while teaching him that taking risks is always a part of true expression; that one should go with the inner changes that take place over a lifetime and, in hand with intuition and imagination, let them drive one’s work. Each canvas is a new challenge where formulas and resumé don't apply.

He's influenced by the elements around him as points of departure rather than as items for depiction. It’s the sense of the essence of things, in concert with his attitude toward them, that he attempts to lay down on canvas.

For the layman, viewing art in the environment of its creation is an invaluable experience. Studios are vital places. A visit to Bob Crimi's studio, as well as to other artists' studios, is encouraged. They give a multi-dimensional view and initiate an intimacy with artworks that isn’t available elsewhere.