August Mosca

Speeding Train Through Arches

1939

August Mosca was born in Naples, Italy, on August 19, 1909. He and his family emigrated to the United States in 1911. He attended Yale School of Art in 1924–26, before moving to New York City, where he attended Pratt Institute (1929). While living in his studio on Sixth Avenue and West Fourth Street in 1931, he studied at the Art Students League with Harry Wickey. In 1932, Mosca studied at Grand Central School of Art and made his first trip to study in Italy. He met Joseph Stella in 1937, who introduced him to the silverpoint medium which he perfected throughout his life. The year 1939 saw the completion of Mosca's first paintings of New York City bridges and subways. He received the California Palace of the Legion of Honor Medal and took part in the Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition "Portrait of America" during the mid-1940s. His first solo exhibit was at the Salpeter Gallery in New York City, where he showed annually from 1959–69 and 1961 marked a one-man show at the Guild Hall of East Hampton, New York. The Butler Institute of American Art, the Library of Congress, and the Brooklyn Museum (two silverpoint drawings) acquired his work during that time. During the 1970s, Mosca had solo exhibits in New York’s Cultural Center, the Fordham University and the FAR Gallery. Mosca's work was acquired by the Grey Art Gallery of New York University Art Collection, the Parrish Art Museum (Southampton, New York) and the New York Public Library. He received the President's Award in the Audubon Annual, the Barney Paiser Award and the Purchase Prize in the Society of American Graphics Artists Annual. In 1978, the Association of American Artists commissioned two lithographs. In 1987, East End Arts Council held a one-man exhibition of silverpoint drawings and produced a cable television show in conjunction with the exhibit. Mosca participated in "Impressionism and Post-Impressionism" and "New York: Empire City in the Age of Urbanism 1875–1945" exhibits, in 1988, at Grand Central Art Galleries, followed by “August Mosca, A Fifty-Year Retrospective Exhibit” in 1990. Mosca found his inspiration in the Florentine and Northern Italian schools of the Renaissance which he studied on many trips to Italy. He learned that drawing is the most important part of a painting, bringing this knowledge back to the emerging modernism being explored in New York City. Joseph Stella made a lasting impression on the young Mosca. Stella encouraged him to paint the city in a form that would reflect himself. Drawing the bridges of New York, Mosca said, "After many attempts to capture the fright this bridge inspired in me, I eventually arrived at this mood of translucent tranquility and awesome quietude as I looked long at the crisscrosses, struts, and stresses."