Jean Xceron
Greek/American [1890-1967]
UNTITLED, ABSTRACT COMPOSITION; 1955
oil on canvas
16 x 13 in. (40.6 x 33 cm)
initialed and dated lower right

Jean Xceron, born Yiannis Xirocostas, in the village of Isaris, Greece, is noted as one of the key figures in the development of abstraction in the United States. Xceron moved to the United States at 14 years of age, eventually settling in New York City as a young man. Like many young artists at the time, Xceron’s trajectory was affected greatly by the 1913 New York Armory Show, which introduced the modern art of Paris to the United States. He moved to Paris in the late 1920s, where he resided for ten years, falling in step with the modern European art movements of the time and writing reviews of the latest art world happenings for newspapers in Paris and the United States. Xceron returned to America an entirely abstract artist. 

Jean Xceron was employed by the Guggenheim Museum as a registrar and security guard in 1939, and he would keep his post there for the remainder of his life. As modern art progressed into the 1940s and 1950s, Xceron was exposed to major stylistic movements, and took influence  from Cubism, De Stijl, Dada and the Abstract Expressionists. He exhibited widely, and is noted for his deep commitment to painting. Xceron’s work is collected internationally, and can be found in numerous public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian Institution.