Irving Marcus

Irving Marcus (b. 1929 in Minneapolis, MN, d. 2021 in Sacramento, CA) is known for his figurative paintings and drawings in ecstatic, kaleidoscopic hues that embody the contradictory forces of romance and disaster. Dramatically combining, flipping, and rearranging images culled from the newspaper, his rigorously formal compositions are often delirious and vertiginous in effect. Through the use of existing source material and a high-keyed palette, Marcus’s work sits at the intersection of Pop art, Imagism, and Fauvism while remaining uniquely his own. His work is included in many permanent collections including the de Young Museum, San Francisco; Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at UC Davis; Minneapolis Institute of Art; and Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven.