ANGELO PINTO (1908-1994)

The exhibition, Angelo Pinto, A Retrospective, 1928 to 1987: Paintings, Drawings, and The Complete Prints, is at the Susan Teller Gallery, October 6 through November 8, 2012. Concurrently the Gallery is publishing Angelo Pinto: The Complete Prints, with essays by Maria Pinto Carland, Richard J. Wattenmaker, and Susan Teller.

The entire show may be viewed at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/susanteller/sets/72157631668773956/

The career of Angelo Pinto spans more than six decades, from the late 1920s just to the 1990s. A painter, printmaker, draftsman, photographer, teacher, collagist, and stage and costume designer, he was a highly innovative artist who also revived the ancient technique of painting on glass.

Born in Casal Velino, Italy, Angelo Pinto came to America as an infant and grew up in Philadelphia. He graduated from the Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Art (now the University of the Arts, Philadelphia), in 1929. In 1928 he began classes at the Barnes Foundation, and established a relationshipo with founder, Dr. Albert Barnes. Pinto's role as a teacher at the Foundation lasted from 1935 to 1993 and his position as official photographer lasted throughout his life. The photos that Pinto took at the times of Barnes' death were used recently to determine the exact location of works in the newly re-opened collection.

In 1929 Pinto’s Red Water Lily was shown in the 9th International Exhibition of Water Color Painting at the Art Institute of Chicago. Work by Angelo Pinto was shown in, in the Second Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary Painting at the Whitney Museum of American Art, 1935, in American Paintings and Sculpture, 47th Annual Exhibition, Art Institute of Chicago, 1936, and at the New York World’s Fair, 1939.  Most recently paintings by Pinto were featured in PAFA and Dr. Barnes, at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 2012.

In the mid-1930s Pinto and his brothers established a commercial photography studio in New York City. They pioneered the field of location color photography and their work was featured in Town & Country, Life, and Look magazines. In 1941 Angelo made the permanent move to New York City.

In addition to the nine paintings by Angelo Pinto in the Barnes Foundation, his work is in permanent collections throughout the country including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Woodmere Art Museum, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, VA; Chicago Art Institute; Cleveland Museum; Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Public Library, and Davis Museum, Wellesley, MA; Pomona College of Museum of Art, Claremont, CA; Georgetown University Art Collection, National Gallery of Art, and Library of Congress, Washington, DC; the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New York Public Library.