Rhapsody in Steel

Criss was born in London, England and immigrated to Philadelphia where he trained at the Pennsylvania Academy and at the Barnes Foundation. He won the Academy’s Cresson Fellowship and studied abroad for several years. In the 1930s, Criss was closely identified with artists dubbed “the Precisionists” because of their clean, tightly-designed and highly accomplished depictions of urban spaces, machinery, modern inventions, and industry. His reinterpretation of Synthetic Cubism, fused with careful observation of the real world, was met with great acclaim when he exhibited in New York and Philadelphia.