Albert John Pucci (March 11, 1920 – May 30, 2005) was an American multi-genre visual artist. His works have been honored with awards from the

National Academy of Design The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the fin ...

and

National Audubon Society The National Audubon Society (Audubon; ) is an American non-profit environmental organization dedicated to conservation of birds and their habitats. Located in the United States and incorporated in 1905, Audubon is one of the oldest of such organ ...

and have been featured in exhibitions and galleries, including the

National Academy A national academy is an organizational body, usually operating with state financial support and approval, that co-ordinates scholarly research activities and standards for academic disciplines, most frequently in the sciences but also the humanit ...

and The Brooklyn Museum as well as private and corporate collections throughout the world. Primarily known as a painter and illustrator, his prolific output contains works of realism, illustration, book cover art, textile design and romantic cubism.

Style

Pucci's prolific work includes Neo Realism,

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...

and

Cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...

styles, using various mediums including oil, charcoal, watercolor, textiles and tempera. His landscapes, streetscapes, still life's and portraiture's encompass themes from light-hearted and joyous to moody and melancholy, frequently depicting locales such as Italy, New York City and coastal Maine.

Education

Pucci studied at the Brooklyn Academy of Fine Arts and then attended the

Pratt Institute Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York (state), New York. It has a satellite campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The school was ...

, where he worked as an instructor in figure drawing, and layout and design for 24 years. While there, he formed a lasting friendship with renowned artist

Frank Frazetta Frank Frazetta (born Frank Frazzetta ; February 9, 1928 – May 10, 2010) was an American fantasy and science fiction artist, noted for comic books, paperback book covers, paintings, posters, LP record album covers, and other media. He is ...

, who said of Pucci, "I think I learned more from my friends there, especially Albert Pucci."

Commercial art

Pucci excelled in the field of commercial art, creating numerous book covers for major publishers such as Signet, Dell, Houghton Mifflin, Washington Square Press and Mentor Books which were featured on works of classic authors such as Shakespeare, Bronte, Melville, Tennyson and Twain. He also was regularly commissioned for children's book illustrations, magazine illustrations and received accolades for his 48-year career with American Artists Group, who published his paintings as popular greeting cards each year.

Exhibitions and collections

In 1954, Pucci's first one-artist Exhibition was held at the

Associated American Artists Associated American Artists (AAA) was an art gallery in New York City that was established in 1934 and ceased operation in 2000. The gallery marketed art to the middle and upper-middle classes, first in the form of affordable prints and later in ...

Galleries in Manhattan, New York. He would go on to exhibit at numerous galleries, shows and exhibitions throughout New York, Washington, Connecticut and Maine. Notable exhibitions of Pucci's work included the National Academy and

The Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...

. His work has been featured in various permanent collections, including the Thayer Museum of Art in Lawrence, Kansas and the Wausau Museum in Wausau, Wisconsin as well as corporate collections of companies such as MetLife, Nabisco, Pfizer, Lehman Brothers, Abbot Laboratories, Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward. His works are regarded as highly collectible and have been offered in various online art auctions.

Personal life

Pucci was born in

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

on March 11, 1920. His family relocated to

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

where we would reside in Brooklyn Heights for the next 80 years. He was married to his wife Gora for over 50 years, with whom he had three children and six grandchildren. He is the father of Lisa De Wolf, show designer of the world-renowned performance art group Artrageous. He died on May 30, 2005.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pucci, Albert John 1920 births 2005 deaths Artists from Cleveland