Alfonso Ossorio

Alfonso Ossorio (1916, 1990) was a Filipino-American artist known for his extraordinarily eclectic and baroque assemblage works, which he called 'Congregations', dense, encrusted compositions incorporating bones, shells, glass eyes, and found objects. Deeply influenced by Jean Dubuffet and Art Brut, as well as his devout Catholic faith, Ossorio created intensely spiritual and psychologically charged works that occupied a unique space between Abstract Expressionism and assemblage. He was a close friend and patron of Jackson Pollock and was instrumental in bringing Dubuffet's work to wider American attention.