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Thomas Fransioli
Copley Square, Boston

1959-61

About the Item

Thomas Fransioli’s cityscapes are crisp and tidy. Buildings stand in bold outline, trees are sharp, and saturated color permeates the scene. But Fransioli’s cities often lack one critical feature: people. His streets are largely deserted, save for the rare appearance of figure and the occasional black cat scurrying across pavement. Instead, humanity is implied. Magic Realism neatly characterizes Fransioli’s viewpoint. First applied to American art in the 1943 MoMA exhibition “American Realists and Magic Realists,” curator Dorothy Miller noted that Magic Realism “is limited…to pictures of sharp focus and precise representation, whether the subject has been observed—'realism,’ or contrived by the imagination—'magic realism’.” Writer Lincoln Kirstein took the concept a step further: “Magic realists try to convince us that extraordinary things are possible simply by painting them as if they existed.”
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