Edmond Casarella (September 3, 1920 – February 13, 1996) was an American

printmaker Printmaking is the process of creating work of art, artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand proce ...

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

, and

sculptor Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

based in the New York metropolitan area. He developed the innovative use of a layered cardboard printing matrix that could be carved like a

woodcut Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas that ...

, enabling the inexpensive creation of large-scale works.

Early life

Casarella was born in

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.Cooper Union The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (Cooper Union) is a private college at Cooper Square in New York City. Peter Cooper founded the institution in 1859 after learning about the government-supported École Polytechnique in ...

College in 1942. He became a mentor to Vincent Longo, a younger boy in the neighborhood who was interested in art and followed Casarella to Cooper Union.Mark Segal, "Vincent Longo: Squaring the Circle"
''The East Hampton Star,'' 26 November 2014, accessed 26 February 2016 Longo also became an artist, and has worked chiefly as a painter since the late 20th century.

Career

Casarella was hired by printmaker

Anthony Velonis Anthony or Antony is a masculine given name, derived from the ''Antonii'', a '' gens'' ( Roman family name) to which Mark Antony (''Marcus Antonius'') belonged. According to Plutarch, the Antonii gens were Heracleidae, being descendants of Anton ...

, who during the 1930s had led the Federal Arts Project in New York and expanded silk-screen printing as a fine art process.Warrington Colescott, Arthur Hove, ''Progressive Printmakers: Wisconsin Artists and the Print Renaissance''
Univ of Wisconsin Press, 1999, p. 5 Velonis was commissioned to write a pamphlet on this technique, ''Technical Problems of the Artist: Technique of the Silk Screen Process'' (1938), which was distributed to WPA art centers across the country. It was very influential in encouraging artists to try this process.Sylvie Covey, ''Modern Printmaking: A Guide to Traditional and Digital Techniques''
Potter/TenSpeed/Harmony, 2016, p. 38 The

New Deal The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Cons ...

program created employment opportunities for artists. In the 1940s, Velonis continued to lead Creative Printmakers Group in New York, which he had co-founded in 1939. Casarella printed serigraphs at this studio. The following year Casarella created the poster for the 1943 exhibition, ''Artists for Victory.'' Casarella joined the U.S. Army in 1944 and fought in Europe during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. After his discharge, he studied under the

GI Bill The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, commonly known as the G.I. Bill, was a law that provided a range of benefits for some of the returning World War II veterans (commonly referred to as G.I.s). The original G.I. Bill expired in 1956, bu ...

at the Brooklyn Museum School from 1949 to 1951, including printmaking with

Gabor Peterdi Gabor Peterdi (1915 in Pestújhely, Hungary – 2001 in Stamford, Connecticut) was a Hungarian-American painter and printmaker who immigrated to the United States in 1939.

. Casarella made his first paper relief print in about 1948. He continued to experiment with the medium throughout his career and developed a way of layering cardboard in order to cut it like a woodcut - an inexpensive way to produce large-scale works. His work was shown in 1949 at the Laurel Gallery in New York. In 1952 he was represented by

Margaret Lowengrund Margaret Lowengrund (b. 1902 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; d. 1957 New York) was an American artist and a key figure in the American Print Renaissance of the 1950s and 1960s. Lowengrund attended at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and also s ...

's Contemporaries Gallery. In 1953, Casarella and Vincent Longo had their work shown in a joint exhibit at 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 ...

. That same year Casarella's work was included in the ''Young American Printmakers'' exhibition at the New York Museum of Modern Art. In 1962, he was included in the widely traveled exhibition, ''American Prints Today.'' Casarella received a

Fulbright Fellowship The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

in 1951, a Tiffany Award in 1955, and a Guggenheim Foundation Grant in 1960. These awards enabled him to travel for study and work throughout Italy and Greece. Casarella returned to the Brooklyn Museum to teach art classes from 1955 to 1960. During the 1960s, he shifted from printmaking to creating works of sculpture. He taught courses at the

Art Students' League The Art Students League of New York is an art school at 215 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists. Although artists may stud ...

and

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also admi ...

, with additional temporary teaching positions at 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 ...

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's ...

and

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. From 1969 to 1975, he taught at Cooper Union and

Finch College Finch College was an undergraduate women's college in Manhattan, New York City. The Finch School opened as a private secondary school for girls in 1900 and became a liberal arts college in 1952. It closed in 1976. Founding Finch was founded in ...

in New York City.

Works

Casarella was accepted as an Academician of 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 ...

. His prints, paintings and sculpture were included in a score of exhibitions in the United States and Eastern Europe. His work is represented in the collections of the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), ...

, the Brooklyn Museum, the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the

Worcester Art Museum The Worcester Art Museum, also known by its acronym WAM, houses over 38,000 works of art dating from antiquity to the present day and representing cultures from all over the world. WAM opened in 1898 in Worcester, Massachusetts, and ranks among th ...

, the

Speed Art Museum The Speed Art Museum, originally known as the J.B. Speed Memorial Museum, now colloquially referred to as the Speed by locals, is the oldest and largest art museum in Kentucky. It was established in 1927 in Louisville, Kentucky on Third Street ...

, the Chazen Museum of Art, the Green National Museum in Athens, and the Australian National Museum in Canberra. Casarella died on February 13, 1996, in Englewood, New Jersey.

References

Sources

Edmond Casarella
IFPDA biography.

New York Public Library online exhibition

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Casarella, Edmond 1920 births 1996 deaths 20th-century American painters American male painters American printmakers Artists from Newark, New Jersey Cooper Union alumni Cooper Union faculty Art Students League of New York faculty Hunter College faculty Pratt Institute faculty Yale University faculty Rutgers University faculty Columbia University faculty United States Army personnel of World War II National Academy of Design members 20th-century American sculptors American male sculptors Sculptors from New York (state) Sculptors from New Jersey