Charles seliger biography

Portrait of Howard Putzel

Charles Seliger was born on June 3, 1926, in New York. Due to his parents’ divorce, he spent his childhood with his mother in Jersey City, New Jersey, often traveling to New York to visit museums and galleries. Despite not completing secondary school or receiving a traditional artistic education, Seliger was passionate about art from an early age, practising and experimenting with diverse techniques and styles. At only sixteen years of age, he entered the Painters and Sculptors Society of New Jersey where he showed his work for the first time in 1942. In 1943, through his friendship with Jimmy Ernst, he was able to deepen his knowledge of Surrealism and abstract art and swiftly joined the circle of artists who gravitated around Howard Putzel and Peggy Guggenheim.

In 1945 he took part in the A Problem for Critics exhibition organized by Putzel at the 67 Gallery in New York, exhibiting alongside artists such as Arshile Gorky, Hans Hofmann, Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko. In November of the same year, Peggy Guggenheim orga

Selected Solo Exhibitions

Selected Group Exhibitions

Charles Seliger was an American Postwar & Contemporary painter who was born in 1926.

How much does a Charles Seliger cost?

Charles Seliger's work has been offered at auction multiple times, with realized prices ranging from 75 USD to 4,750 USD, depending on the size and medium of the artwork.

What is Charles Seliger's most expensive painting?

Since 2003 the record price for this artist at auction is 4,750 USD for Mountains, sold at Swann Auction Galleries in 2024.

Where can I see Charles Seliger's works?

Their work is currently being shown at Hollis Taggart, New York (521 W 26th Str.). Numerous key galleries and museums such as Hollis Taggart, New York (521 W 26th Str.) have featured Charles Seliger's work in the past.

Charles Seliger in the news

Charles Seliger has been featured in articles for ArtDaily, Spectator and The Brooklyn Rail. The most recent article is Masters of Abstract Expressionism Awaken in a New Era of Critical Importance written for Forbes in November 2019. The artist died in 2009.







Charles Seliger(1926-2009) represents an interesting crosscurrent to the general trend lines of what is called the Abstract Expressionist movement. A first generation AbExer, albeit the youngest of the group, Seliger somehow managed to avoid the pitfalls of both the fame and the ridiculous obsession with scale that plagued so many of his contemporaries. Throughout a career that spanned seven decades, he was able to maintain a near monofocus on his interest, which, as he stated very early on, was to ‘apostrophize micro-reality’.

Hidden Skeleton  1945

Creating small paintings that rarely exceeded 30 inches in any dimension, and were often much smaller, Seliger painted an intimate world of kaleidoscopic and biomorphic forms that suggest microcosmic life. In his own words: “My work, even when most abstract, reflects the natural world. Strata of the earth, forms relating to botany and biology and the ocean depths, all figure in the imagery of my work, no matter how abstract. The images are developed with a feeling for the intricacy of the structure

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