Item #901568 Ralph Fasanella's America (Signed). Paul S. D'Ambrosio.
Ralph Fasanella's America (Signed)
Ralph Fasanella's America (Signed)
Ralph Fasanella's America (Signed)
Ralph Fasanella's America (Signed)
Ralph Fasanella's America (Signed)

Ralph Fasanella's America (Signed)

Cooperstown, New York: Fenimore Art Museum, 2001.
First Edition. Hardcover.

Presentation copy to artist and founder of the Washington Irving Art Gallery in New York City, Bernhardt Crystal (1914-2008), in January 2007. Signed with presentation inscriptions by four signers - author Paul S. D'Ambrosio, Ralph Fasanella's daughter Gina Fasanella Mostrando, Ralph Fasanella's son Marc Fasanella, and "Violet."  Paul D'Ambrosio and Fasanella's children all recognize the importance of Crystal's role in Fasanella's life as an artist in their presentation inscriptions. Crystal was a combat artist in World War II and supported other veteran combat artists in his career as a gallery owner. Uncle of Billy Crystal, Bernhardt was the subject of the HBO documentary My Uncle Berns and played the role of Santa Claus in When Harry Met Sally.

Published in conjunction with the Fenimore Art Museum exhibit of the same name. Fasanella (1914-1997) was a union activist and self-taught painter whose body of work provides an apt visualization of post-World War II America. His bold and colorful paintings depict working-class Americans and detailed urban environments. Ralph Fasanella's America explores the formative influences on Fasanella's art: his Italian immigrant family and neighborhood; Catholic reform school; his work life; his involvement in progressive causes such as the Spanish Civil War and organized labor. D’Ambrosio also traces Fasanella's development as an artist by examining his paintings in the context of twentieth-century American social and political history.

Chapters:

  • Old Neighborhood, 1914-1930
  • May Day, 1930-1945
  • Pie in the Sky, 1945-1950
  • Garden Party, 1950-1958
  • The Mad Sixties, 1958-1972
  • The Great Strike, 1972-1979
  • Public Domain, 1979-1997

With a foreword by Dr. Gilbert T. Vincent and a remembrance by Eva Fasanella.

From the artist: “I’m a society-minded guy. I’m committed to life. But I can’t shut myself off from the past. I don’t forget yesterday, so I know who I am today. I hang on to what I was yesterday, so I know what I’m going to do tomorrow.”

Item #901568
ISBN: 0917334264

9-5/8 x 11-5/8", beige cloth, pictorial free endpapers, 176pp, footnotes, biblio., index, 100 illustrations, 73 in full color.

Loosening at signature hinges, still tight, very good in dust wrapper with a bit of edge-wear to extreme corners, edges and folds, in protective mylar.

Price: $250.00

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