Herbert Lee Creecy Jr.’s obituary in The Atlanta Constitution described him as “an important figure in Southern abstract art,” a significant statement that acknowledged his decision to stay in Georgia despite representation at a prestigious New York gallery. Creecy was prolific and over his career explored a variety of approaches that fit into a broad definition of Abstract Expressionism.
Creecy was born in Norfolk, Virginia, but as a seven-year-old moved to Atlanta, Georgia, with his family. He lived in an apartment complex in Buckhead (Atlanta’s shopping mecca) and went to E. Rivers Elementary School, where Martin Luther King Jr. had also been a student years before. He then proceeded to Northside High School and graduated in 1958. Then followed a short period (1958–1960) at the University of Alabama, where his father had hoped he would study dentistry, but after an art class the dye was cast and he defected, returning home to attend Atlanta College of Art. He received his degree in 1964 and was selected by the college as the recipient of an annual fellowship from the French government to study in Paris with Stanley William Hayter, founder of Atelier 17, an experimental workshop dedicated to printmaking.
In the early 1970s Creecy moved out of central Atlanta, to nearby smaller towns, first to Suwanee and then to an old cotton facility in Barnesville, which allowed him more room to experiment in his work. He once observed about himself: “I am a shapemaker. Underneath all this is a complex structure.” At times he folded canvases and often repurposed them, ending up with thick layers of pigment. A close friend from his youth commented on how he made model airplanes but “would never follow the directions, and he would paint all over them.” Inspired by Jackson Pollock, he frequently painted on the floor and affixed different materials. Using his knowledge of printmaking he worked with polyurethane transfers which added additional texture to his pieces. He was so productive in his creative practice that his studio held over three thousand paintings at the time of his death in 2003.