About

Monique Crine was born in Heidelberg, Germany. She obtained her B.A. from San Francisco State University, and her M.F.A. from Cornell University. She is the recipient of many awards including a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant; CCA grant; the Bank of America Award in Fine Arts; and a National MS Society scholarship. Since her first show in 1996, Crine has exhibited across North America, with solo shows in New York, Colorado and California. Her most recent solo exhibition Critical Focus: Monique Crine ran at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver during the summer of 2015. Working from her own photographs, Crine creates arresting paintings that explore different American archetypes. For her most recent series, she focused on the professional football player, creating both heroic and tragic representations of these (literally) larger-than-life figures. Her paintings are strikingly indebted to film—especially the classic, Hollywood spectacles of the mid-20th century. The drama of lighting, pose, and costume transform individual players into cinematic characters. This tension between stylized characters and real people parallels precisely how perceptions of celebrities frequently skirt the boundary between reality and fantasy.

Previous series include Grey Towers, which was based on photographs of JFK taken by Crine’s grandfather, a press photographer, two months before his assassination. And Tony James, a series of painting and photographs taken of infantryman within the US Army based out of Fort Carson, specializing as a combat engineer in route clearance.

Prior to pursuing her art full time, Crine worked for some of the world’s most prestigious auction houses - Bonhams and Sotheby’s. She ultimately left the fast paced auction world to run a plein air gallery in Laguna Beach, CA. After promoting other artists’ work for years, she chose to direct her focus on the things she was most passionate about - her painting practice and teaching.

Since 2013, Crine has been a Visiting Artist and Guest Critic at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. She has also lectured at the University of Denver, Colorado State University, Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design, Metro State University of Denver, and the University of Oregon.

She currently maintains a studio in Littleton, Colorado, and occasionally paints dogs for friends.