Joseph DiGiorgio

American, 1930 - 2000

http://www.josephdigiorgio.com/ Joseph DiGiorgio, 69, Landscape Painter Published: Monday, June 12, 2000 New York Times BuzzPermalinkJoseph DiGiorgio, a painter best known for monumental images of edenic American landscapes, died on May 26 at his home in Manhattan. He was 69. Michael Walls, an art dealer and friend, said Mr. DiGiorgio died in his sleep. Mr. DiGiorgio was born in Brooklyn in 1930, the son of Italian immigrants. During the 1950's he studied art at the Cooper Union and attended Hans Hofmann's classes in Provincetown, Mass. His mature work was a sophisticated attempt to modernize 19th-century American landscape painting. His rich colors and small brush strokes seemed to combine Pointillism and Fauvism with Photo Realism, and the scale and mystical quality of his work reflected his admiration for the Abstract Expressionists, many of whom he knew personally. He tended to work in series, painting related images of subjects like the Grand Canyon, the California coast and the Hudson River. He also made 200 paintings of Prospect Park in Brooklyn, 50 for each season, that were all shown at the Prichard Art Gallery at the University Museum, in Moscow, Idaho, in 1995. Mr. DiGiorgio had his first solo show in Manhattan at the Michael Walls Gallery in SoHo in 1975. His most recent New York show, at the Kouros Gallery on East 73rd Street in Manhattan in March, featured paintings from a series titled ''New York City at Night.'' He is survived by a sister, Helen DiLello of Brooklyn, and a brother, Salvatore, of Port St. Lucie, Fla.