Joe Stefanelli (March 20, 1921 – September 27, 2017), also known as Joseph J. Stefanelli, belonged to the New York School

Abstract Expressionist Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...

artists whose influence and artistic innovation by the 1950s had been recognized around the world. New York School Abstract Expressionism, represented by

Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his " drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a hor ...

Willem de Kooning Willem de Kooning (; ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. He was born in Rotterdam and moved to the United States in 1926, becoming an American citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married painter El ...

Franz Kline Franz Kline (May 23, 1910 – May 13, 1962) was an American painter. He is associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement of the 1940s and 1950s. Kline, along with other action painters like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Robert Mot ...

and others became a leading

art movement An art movement is a tendency or style in art with a specific common philosophy or goal, followed by a group of artists during a specific period of time, (usually a few months, years or decades) or, at least, with the heyday of the movement defi ...

of the era that followed

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 opposing ...

. He died in September 2017 at the age of 96.

Biography

Stefanelli grew up in a large working-class Italian-American family in South Philadelphia. He was born March 20, 1921, in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

Studied painting

*1938–1940: Philadelphia Museum School, *1940–1941:

Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts Pennsylvania (; (Pennsylvania Dutch language, Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appa ...

*1948–1949: Hofmann School of Fine Art *1949–1950: New School for Social Research *1950–1951: Art Students League of New York

Military service in World War II

Stefanelli entered the Army during

. Eventually he was working as an illustrator, from 1942 to 1946 provided field drawings that were published in "’Artists for Yank Magazine’’’. He traveled all over the South Pacific as a combat artist. Today these works are housed in the permanent collection of the

Archives Building, Washington, D.C.

Participation in the downtown art scene

He had his studio in the Lower East Side, on 22nd Street. Stefanelli soon joined the "Downtown Group" which represented a group of artists who found studios in lower Manhattan.

introduced Stefanelli to 'The Artists’ Club’. located at 39 East 8th Street. Stefanelli was chosen by his fellow artists to show in the

Ninth Street Show The 9th Street Art Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture is the official title artist Franz Kline hand-lettered onto the poster he designed for the Ninth Street Show (May 21-June 10, 1951).

held on May 21 – June 10, 1951. The show was located at 60 East 9th Street on the first floor and the basement of a building which was about to be demolished: "The artists celebrated not only the appearance of the dealers, collectors and museum people on the 9th Street, and the consequent exposure of their work but they celebrated the creation and the strength of a living community of significant dimensions." Stefanelli participated in 1951 and from 1954 to 1957 in the invitational New York Painting and Sculpture Annuals including the

. These Annuals were important because the participants were chosen by the artists themselves.''New York school : abstract expressionists : artists choice by artists : a complete documentation of the New York painting and sculpture annuals, 1951–1957 p. 11–29''
/ref>

Teaching positions

By the 1960s Stefanelli, like many of his contemporaries, taught art in major universities. *1960, 1963:

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Franci ...

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and E ...

*1963–1966:

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

Princeton, New Jersey Princeton is a municipality with a borough form of government in Mercer County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton and Princeton Township, both of whi ...

*1966: New School for Social Research, New York City *1966–1974:

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 ...

, New York City *1974–1977: Brooklyn College,

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 ...

*1979–1980:

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...

, New York City

Awards

Stefanelli has received number of awards: *1971: New York State Council of Art, New York *2000:

Pollock-Krasner Foundation The Pollock-Krasner Foundation was established in 1985 for the purpose of providing financial assistance to individual working artists of established ability. It was established at the bequest of Lee Krasner, who was an American abstract expressio ...

, New York City for his life work *2005: Benjamin Altman Prize,

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

for painting

Works in museums and public collections

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 ...

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 (1875–194 ...

, New York City *

Yellowstone Art Museum The Yellowstone Art Museum in downtown Billings, Montana is the largest contemporary art museum in Montana. History and mission of the museum The Yellowstone Art Center (now the Yellowstone Art Museum, or YAM) opened in October 1964 in the former ...

Billings Billings is the largest city in the U.S. state of Montana, with a population of 117,116 as of the 2020 census. Located in the south-central portion of the state, it is the seat of Yellowstone County and the principal city of the Billings Met ...

, Montana

References

*United States. Army Service Forces. Special Service Division.; National Gallery of Art (US)
''Soldier art''
(

ashington Ashington is a town and civil parish in Northumberland, England, with a population of 27,864 at the 2011 Census. It was once a centre of the coal mining industry. The town is north of Newcastle upon Tyne, west of the A189 and bordered to the ...

Infantry Journal, 1945. *Marika Herskovic
''New York School Abstract Expressionists Artists Choice by Artists,''
(New York School Press, 2000.) p. 32; 38; 350–353
''Smithsonian Institution Research Information System; Archival, Manuscript and Photographic Collections, Joe Stefanelli''

External links

exhibition at the

Ludwig Museum Museum Ludwig, located in Cologne, Germany, houses a collection of modern art. It includes works from Pop Art, Abstract and Surrealism, and has one of the largest Picasso collections in Europe. It holds many works by Andy Warhol and Roy ...

, Koblenz, Germany * *