American painter. Marca-Rellia began his first formal artistic training in New York when he was thirteen, taking night classes at a private art school. He studied for a year at Cooper Union Art School (1930) before establishing his own studio. Many of his paintings are large-scale collages, made of pieces of canvas or linen overpainted with substantial brushstrokes, some showing his experimentation with metals and synthetic plastics. Many of these collages depict multiple figures or architectural scenes. He is considered a pioneer of Abstract Expressionism.