James Croak

James Croak
Nationality	American
Education	University of Illinois
Known for	conceptual configuration and sculpture

James Croak (born 1951) is a visual artist known for his work in conceptual figuration and sculpture.

James Croak was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1951. His mother died at the age of two. At the age of 15 he was a recognized musical prodigy and studied under Andrés Segovia, the virtuoso Spanish classical guitarist. At the age of sixteen he gave a series of concerts as a part of the 1968 Summer Olympic Games in Mexico City. Following his high school education, Croak attended the Ecumenical Institute in Chicago studying philosophy, and studied sculpture concurrently at the University of Illinois at Chicago graduating in 1974.

Croak received a National Endowment for the Arts artist-in-residence grant in 1976. At this point much of his work was done with the medium of aluminum in a method similar to that of Frank Stella, although Croak is believed to have developed his personal technique himself. Later that year he moved his work to the abandoned Fire Station Number 23 in Los Angeles, California, where his work became less abstract and more figural. After eight years he moved to Brooklyn, New York.

Croak's work was featured in Thomas C. McEvilley's book Sculpture in the Age of Doubt, and also in a book dedicated entirely to Croak's work entitled James Croak, published by the same author. In 2011 he was featured at the Wellcome Collection in London, UK as a part of an exhibition entitled "Dirt". The work exhibited was designed to cause a strong emotional reaction in the onlooker: a review of his work at this show by The Guardian newspaper's art critic Laura Cumming stated that, "It would be hard to overstate the physical effect of James Croak's… sculpture". The sculpture was an example of his "dirt sculpture" technique, which employs a mixture of binder and different kinds of dirt, dust, and soil. According to the artist, the material was developed out of necessity, stating that in 1985, "I wanted to cast a full-size self–portrait, but I couldn't afford bronze, so I walked down the street to an empty lot, dug up dirt, put it in a wheelbarrow, took it home, mixed it with glue, and pressed it into the plaster mold." He has also been known to work with found objects and taxidermy. A twenty-year retrospective of his work was held in 1998 at the Contemporary Art Center of Virginia.

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