Vincent Richard Campanella New York, Missouri (1915 - 2001) Point Match (Pool Players), 1945 oil on canvas signed and dated in lower center left. Possible repair visible in right quadrant. Cracking visible 7" in from right edge and 3" up from bottom edge. Biography from the Archives of askART The following biography is written and submitted May 2010 by Tura Campanella Cook, daughter of the artist. SUBJECTS AND STYLES Vincent Campanella painted primarily New York, Wyoming and Maine landscapes from the 1920s to the 1990s. He was employed as an "Easel artist" for the Works Progress Administration* (WPA) in Rock Springs, Wyoming 1933-1940. Campanella's pre-Wyoming style was Social Realism*. Influenced by the open space and geography of Wyoming, his style became abstract*. He painted portraits in the style of John Singer Sargent. ART MOVEMENTS Campanella was a classical abstractionist. He was a colleague of Ad Reinhardt, Jack Levine, Joseph Solman, Paul Horiuchi, Mark Tobey, Herbert Kallem and Henry Kallem. His students include Robert Morris, Wilbur Niewald, Richard Arthur (Dik) Browne, and Winifred Barnum. He was a friend of Kansas City neighbor and art icon Thomas Hart Benton and painted the last portrait of Benton. The Frank Rehn Gallery, a pioneer dealer in the exclusive promotion of living American artists, represented him. Campanella was influenced by prehistoric cave paintings, Egyptian art and architecture, Domenikos Theotokopoulos (known as El Greco but thought it was racist to call him that), Pieter Bruegel the Elder, John Singer Sargent, and Jose Clemente Orozco. EDUCATION AND TRAINING He received a classical art education based on the Naples, Italy, model at the Leonardo da Vinci Art School* in New York City, 1924-31, from ages nine to sixteen. He also studied at the National Academy of Design* from 1931 to 1933. He pursued higher academic learning at the City College of New York in 1948 and received the BA degree in Education and MA degree in Philosophy from the University of Missouri-Kansas City in 1954 and 1956 respectively. PERSONAL BACKGROUND Vincent Campanella was born in 1915 in the Hell's Kitchen area of New York City to Italian immigrant parents. His father owned and drove his own cab. Three siblings all studied music or theater. The actor Frank DeKova was his older brother. Campanella painted streetscapes in Astoria, New York; the docks of Gloucester, Massachusetts; and coastline of Monhegan, Maine. He was sent to Rock Springs, Wyoming, to teach art and establish an art center as part of the WPA. While there his style became abstract. When the US entered World War II, he returned to New York and worked as an engineer in arms manufacturing. Campanella married Leah Ourlicht, a social worker, in 1945. He taught art at Columbia University, College of Painting and Sculpture, from 1946 until 1949 when he and Leah moved to Kansas City. Campanella taught at the Kansas City Art Institute* and later founded the Art Department at Park College (now Park University) where he taught until his retirement with Emeritus distinction in 1980. Two children, Tura and David, were born and raised in Kansas City. The family summered in Maine where Campanella painted and maintained a two-hundred-year-old house in Owl's Head. He died in Austin, Texas, in 2001. ART ORGANIZATIONS Campanella was a member of the American Watercolor Society* and noted in Who's Who in American Art and Who Was Who in American Art. He was a member of the American Art Union* in the 1930s. He established the Rock Springs (Wyoming) Art Association in 1939 and was one of the founders of the Mid-America Art Association in 1950. 9 7/8"H x 13 3/4"W (sight), 15 1/4"H x 19 1/4"W (frame)