Paul Crotto

Paul Crotto (born 1922, New York; died 2016, Paris) was an American expatriate painter, sculptor and printmaker active in Paris. From the late 1950s, he became a regular denzien of the art colony in the village of Deià on Mallorca, where he was also remembered as an inveterate chess player.

Early life, WWII service, time in Asia Paul Crotto was born in New York to Polish and German parents, the youngest of three children. He attended the University of Georgia at Athens as a freshman, but was then drafted into the U.S. Navy during World War II. In 1945 he graduated in the Midshipman’s school in Chicago as a Commissioned Officer.

After special training at Harvard University, he became a communication/coding officer for the Navy in India, Chungking, and Shanghai. After the war, he left the Navy and was hired by the U.S. War Department, working in local military administration in Peking and visiting Formosa. After the Communist victory, Crotto exited China via Manchuria, and left the War Department.

He made silkscreens and engravings in Atelier Lacourière in Montmartre, a studio created by Roger Lacourière, where he met Henri Matisse and Joan Miró, and he showed his artwork in group exhibitions with Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, André Derain and Jean Fautrier. Crotto continued to exhibit his work in solo and group exhibitions in Europe and the United States into the 1970s.

He presented his work at the Salon d'Automne, the , the , and the . His paintings and silkscreens are included in the collections of Claude Raphaël-Leygues and Lawrence Malkin.

At the end of his life, Crotto resided at the Maison Nationale des Artistes (a retirement home for artists under the auspices of the ) in Nogent-sur-Marne, a suburb of Paris. His final show was a retrospective of his work held at the Maison Nationale des Artistes the year of his death, 2016.

Among Crotto's closest friends in both Paris and Deià, as reported by literary critic Bruce King in his memoirs, were Waldren, writer Nick Arnold, and Paul Arnoboldi (described by another Deià regular as an "LSD entrepreneur" ). According to King, Crotto "was a handsome man who attracted woman," and was married at least three times. While Crotto wasa good painter in the increasingly out-of-date Parisian School...he had avoided following others he knew towards action painting, pop art, minimalism, and other postmodernist styles and that perhaps explained his obsession with chess rather than his own paintings which over the decades would sell poorly and sporadically. Every so many years he would be rediscovered and promoted for a few shows by some gallery and then there would be a wait for the next rediscovery. Meanwhile he played more and more chess, painted less and less, and his wives left him...Deià was a continual chess game that moved from the cafes to the beach to private houses to restaurants to wherever pieces and a board could be set up, [and] one of the most dedicated chess players was Paul Crotto. City of Villeneuve-sur-Lot, 1963 Galerie René Drouet, Paris, 1964 Musée d'Art International gallery, San Francisco, 1965 Galerie Grave, Munich, 1966, 1967 Galerie René Drouet, Paris, 1968 Sindin Harris Galleries, New York, 1969 Galerie René Drouet, Paris, 1978 Maison Nationale des Artistes, Nogent-sur-Marne, 2016

Group exhibitions

Mostra di Artisti Americani, Florence, 1951 Galerie am Alten Hof, Munich, 1967 School of Paris, Galerie Juarez, Los Angeles, 1967 Artists of Europe and Israel, Riverdale, New York, 1968 (Group exhibition with Marc Chagall and Pablo Picasso among others) Salon Comparaisons, Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, 1968