Alfred D. Crimi, also known as Alfredo Crimi, (San Fratello, Italy 1900–New York City 1994), was an

Italian-American Italian Americans ( it, italoamericani or ''italo-americani'', ) are Americans who have full or partial Italian ancestry. The largest concentrations of Italian Americans are in the urban Northeast and industrial Midwestern metropolitan areas, ...

painter. Crimi was born in

San Fratello San Fratello (Gallo-Italic: San Frareau, Sicilian: ''Santu Frateddu'', Greek and Latin: ''Apollonia'', Medieval Latin ''Castrum S. Philadelphi''), formerly San Filadelfo, is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Messina in the ...

, Sicily, on December 1, 1900. He emigrated to the United States in 1910 and became a US citizen in 1924. He attended 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 f ...

in New York from 1916 to 1924, and the

Beaux-Arts Institute of Design The Beaux-Arts Institute of Design (BAID, later the National Institute for Architectural Education) was an art and architectural school at 304 East 44th Street in Turtle Bay, Manhattan, in New York City.fresco and

encaustic painting Encaustic painting, also known as hot wax painting, is a form of painting that involves a heated wax medium to which colored pigments have been added. The molten mix is applied to a surface—usually prepared wood, though canvas and other mate ...

During World War II, Crimi went to work for

Sperry Gyroscope Sperry may refer to: Places In the United States: * Sperry, Iowa, community in Des Moines County * Sperry, Missouri * Sperry, Oklahoma, town in Tulsa County * Sperry Chalet, historic backcountry chalet, Glacier National Park, Montana *Sperry Glaci ...

making drawings of weapons and instruments for military training manuals. After the war, Crimi worked as a painter and

watercolorist Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to t ...

. His style evolved into

abstractionism Abstractionism is the theory that the mind obtains some or all of its concepts by abstracting them from concepts it already has, or from experience.Geach, Peter (1957) Mental Acts - Their Contents and Their Objects. Routledge Kegan Paul. One may, ...

, including his painting "Metropolis", which "uses rectangular and abstract geometrical forms to represent a modern city." He held numerous shows and was credited with having nine solo shows by 1963 when

Francis Quirk Francis James Quirk (June 3, 1907 – February 5, 1974) was an American artist, educator, museum curator, and TV personality. He is best known for his paintings of Edgar Lee Masters and Carl Sandberg, as well as his affiliation with Lehigh Unive ...

organized an exhibit at Lehigh University."Works by Crimi and Anna Quirk To Go on Exhibit Sunday" Brown and White, Lehigh University Student Newspaper Vol. 74 No. 43 — 19 April 1963 Page 5 Crimi painted a number of murals. Notably, he was hired by the

Federal Art Project The Federal Art Project (1935–1943) was a New Deal program to fund the visual arts in the United States. Under national director Holger Cahill, it was one of five Federal Project Number One projects sponsored by the Works Progress Administrati ...

of the

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...

(WPA) for the Harlem Hospitals murals project. He also worked for the

Public Works of Art Project The Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) was a New Deal program designed to employ artists that operated from 1933 to 1934. The program was headed by Edward Bruce, under the United States Treasury Department with funding from the Civil Works Admin ...

in Key West, Florida. Significant murals include: * Hampshire County Courthouse mural, Northampton, Massachusetts (1940) *

Harlem Hospital Harlem Hospital Center, branded as NYC Health + Hospitals/Harlem, is a 272-bed, public teaching hospital affiliated with Columbia University. It is located at 506 Lenox Avenue in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City and was founded in 1887. The hosp ...

, New York NY (1940) * Post Office Mural,

Wayne, Pennsylvania Wayne is an unincorporated community centered in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, on the Main Line, a series of highly affluent Philadelphia suburbs located along the railroad tracks of the Pennsylvania Railroad and one of the wealthiest areas ...

(1941) * Clinton Federal Building,

Washington DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

(1937)

Awards and exhibitions

* 1923

Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation was founded in 1918 by Louis Comfort Tiffany to operate his estate, Laurelton Hall, in Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island. It was designed to be a summer retreat for artists and craftspeople. In 1946 the estate ...

Fellowship *1931 Portland Museum, Oregon *1932 De Young Museum, San Francisco *1956 Emily Lowe Prize *1962 Holyoke Museum * 1963 Lehigh University Art Galleries * 1966 Fordham University * 1971 Ringwood Manor Museum * Ulrich Museum, Wichita State University

Collections

* Butler Museum of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio *Brush Art Gallery, St. Lawrence University *Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Virginia *Columbia Museum, South Carolina *Evansvilee Museum of Arts and Science, Evansville, Indiana *Forbes Library Collection, Northhampton, Massachusetts *Holyoke Museum, Massachusetts *Museum of the City of New York *Magoichire Chatani - Pres Yamatene International Inc., Tokyo, Japan *Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, Massachusetts *Wisteriahurst Museum * Ulrich Museum, Wichita State University * Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Oregon *Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts *Slater Memorial Museum, Norwich Academy, Norwich, Connecticut *Smithsonian American Art Museum *Springfield Art Museum, Springfield, Missouri *University of Syracuse *University of MarylandCenter for Migration Studies of New York; Alfred D. Crimi Papers (CMS 088) *Wichita State University Museum, Kansas *Whitney Museum of American Art

References

External links

Alfred D. Crimi papers (1924–1993)
*
''Nautilus'', watercolor by Alfred D. Crimi (1947)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Crimi, Alfred D. 1900 births 1994 deaths 20th-century American painters Italian emigrants to the United States Federal Art Project artists People from San Fratello