Born in 1946 in Long Beach, New York, John Grazier studied at the Corcoran School of Art, Washington, D.C., in 1968 and the Maryland Institute College of Art in 1970-71. His work was first exhibited at the Baltimore Museum of Art in 1974 and has since been exhibited at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, North Carolina, and the Tampa Museum. Grazier completed a large commission of multiple works for the celebrated Greyhound Bus Terminal in Washington, D.C. His work is included in the collections of the National Museum of American Art and the Library of Congress. A draftsman and a painter, Grazier executes his images meticulously in black and white with airbrush. He paints empty office buildings, houses, lunch counters, and buses; uninhabited, enigmatic scenes that are permeated by a sense of loneliness. A slightly skewed perspective emphasizes the images' abstract designs and monochromatic patterns.
*Excerpted from Tools as Art: The Hechinger Collection, published by Harry N. Abrams Inc.