Joseph Glasco was an American Abstract Expressionist painter and sculptor.
Joseph Glasco was born in Pauls Valley, Oklahoma, but grew up in Texas. His parents were Lowell and Pauline Glasco. He had three brothers, Gregory, Gordon Michael, and two sisters, Anne Brawley and Marion Glasco (married to oilman C. Fred Chambers).
Glasco graduated from the University of Texas at Austin. Shortly after, he enlisted in the United States Army during World War II, and he served in the Battle of the Bulge. After the war, he enrolled at the Portsmouth Art School in Bristol, England. He also studied at the School of Painting and Sculpture, in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. He subsequently attended the Art Students League of New York.
Glasco became a renowned painter in New York City in the 1950s to 1970s. He was influenced by his friendships with Jackson Pollock and Alfonso A. Ossorio as well as the artwork of Jean Dubuffet and the art theory of Hans Hofmann. His works are on permanent display in numerous museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Glasco endowed the Joseph Glasco Charitable Foundation.
Glasco was the lover of the writer William Goyen and in Clark Davis' biography of Goyen called It Starts With Trouble (University of Texas Press, 2015) , he documents their relationship. Glasco retired in Galveston, Texas in 1972, where he maintained a studio on The Strand near the Strand Emporium, and lived as a virtual recluse. Glasco died on May 31, 1996 in Galveston, Texas.

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