Gregorio Prestopino Landscape Paintings

Provenance: The Artist. Menikoff collection (friends of the artist) About this artist: Born in Little Italy in 1907, Gregorio Prestopino first set out to become a sign painter as th...

This work epitomizes Prestopino's interest in social realism which captures a quiet interlude in the everyday life of an "everyman." It also provides a contrast for our expectations as we view a tough, blue collar worker, with no one watching, as he sings a melody to the birds. In an original frame measuring 49" x 39" x 3.25" Provenance: Edith Halpert's Downtown Gallery (label verso from 13 w. 113th street, where the gallery was located from 1926 until 1939) Private collection, NYC, c. 1935 By descent About this artist: Born in Little Italy in 1907, Gregorio Prestopino first set out to become a sign painter as the son of New York City immigrants. Instead, his talent provided a life-changing scholarship to the National Academy of Design, and for five years he studied drawing under C. W. Hawthorne. He spent the summer of 1934 at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire. His deep involvement with the colony led him to later serve as its director in 1954. Much of Prestopino’s work was in the vein of social realism. During the 1940s and 1950s he became deeply invested in portraying everyday Manhattan and Harlem scenes. He first became interested in the Ashcan school at the National Academy of Design, and remained committed to an interest in working with urban scenes. His lively treatment of people and events revealed his affinity for sixteenth-century artist Pieter Breughel...

GREGORIO PRESTOPINO (1907-1984) The Factory, c. 1935 Oil on canvas 30 x 24 inches Signed at lower left: Prestopino Born in the Little Italy section of New York City, Prestopino was awarded a scholarship to the National Academy of Design at the age of fourteen. Early in his career he came under the influence of the French Impressionists, but was soon drawn to the American realists of the Ashcan School, whose work led him directly to the study of urban life. As a young man Prestopino set up his first studio in Harlem. During the 1930s his social realist paintings had an anecdotal quality in their description of everyday incidents of the working class, depicting the grit of city life – docks, laborers, vendors, Lower East Side streets. Prestopino lived in Brooklyn for many years, spending summers at a farm near Clinton, New Jersey. At the farm Prestopino painted in the barn, while his wife - illustrator Elizabeth Dauber - had a studio in the house. He moved to Roosevelt, New Jersey in 1949. Other artists who have lived in Roosevelt include Ben and Bernarda Shahn, their son Jonathan Shahn, Jacob Landau, David Stone Martin and his son, Stefan Martin...