but a few years later, the placid Lombardy plain, its florid meadows, the stark outline of its farmhouses, its low foggy sky, all found a vertical elevation in his paintings; they became the new points of reference for his imagination. Congdon now had to tackle a sky and earth that never seemed to change, that seemed the permanent heralds of death. In his diary he wrote that it was like going into exile from all that had previously supported, comforted, flattered and inspired him. In effect the demanding and unavoidable engagement with the land and the rhythm of the seasons had precise and decisive effects upon his art. From the early 1980s onwards, his draftsmanship became less taut, his paint less thick, his colors more sharply divided. While never totally denying a basis in naturalistic perception, the works of this new phase in his art reveal a greater degree of abstraction. Death Congdon died on April 15, 1998, his 86th birthday. He painted up to a few days before his death. The palette range in his last painting reveals unusual combinations and contrapositions: for example, the sky in his very last work - Three Trees - is a startling innovation. Critical Rediscovery Even after his conversion to Catholicism, Congdon still had some opportunities to exhibit his work, both in Italy and in the United States. His last one-man show at the Betty Parsons Gallery was held in 1967. This date should be considered alongside the general unease felt in American intellectual circles at his conversion; with very few exceptions, critical attention to his work rapidly ceased, and the artist was left for dead in Assisi, a professional suicide. The 1962 exhibition at the Palazzo Reale in Milano did not change things; nor did the two Galleria Cadario exhibitions (in Rome and Milan) in 1969. A change - though only a partial change - in this situation became apparent in the early 1980s. In 1980 a retrospective exhibition of his work was held in Rimini, Italy, during the first Meeting for Friendship Among Peoples. In 1981 a retrospective exhibition of his work at the Palazzo dei Diamanti, in Ferrara, revived public interest in Congdon’s career. His “re-appearance” was further helped by the creation, in October 1980, of a Foundation designed to promote knowledge and study of the artist’s work. Oil paints Throughout his career and as long as he had the