Allan D'Arcangelo

Allan d'Arcangelo (1930-1998)
"June Moon "
Serigraph, 1969.
LFAC #936

Biography

Allan d’Arcangelo was born June 16, 1930, in Buffalo, New York. He was educated at the University of Buffalo where he received a BA degree in history in 1953. He also studied at the City College of New York, the New School for Social Research and at Mexico City College which he attended for two years from 1957-59. He served in the army in the mid-1950s.

d’Arcangelo taught at a number of institutions including Brooklyn College (1973-1992), the School of Visual Arts in New York City (1963-1968), Cornell University and the Institute of Humanistic Studies in Aspen, CO. He regularly sold his art and received numerous mural commissions, both public and private.

He is especially known for his paintings of highways and road signs which he began in 1963. His paintings are identified as being part of the Pop movement. It has been suggested that his painting eventually evolved away from the confines of the Pop movement to being more abstract, rougher and more primitive. One of his most famous paintings of a Gulf oil company sign hanging moon-like over a highway was reproduced as a full-page image in an issue of The New Yorker, December 28, 1998/January 4, 1999.

d’Arcangelo was included in significant group exhibits in the 1960s including shows at the Museum of Modern Art, the Oakland (CA) Museum, the Institute for Contemporary Art in London, and the Albright-Knox Museum in Buffalo. His first solo show was at the Fischbach Gallery in New York in 1963 followed by numerous solo shows both in the United States and in Europe. Museums which include his art works in their permanent collections include the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, the Detroit Institute of Arts, and the Walker Art Center. He received a National Institute of Arts and Letters Award in 1970.

In the early 1970s d’Arcangelo moved to a farm near Kenoza Lake, New York, where he continued to paint. He also built a natural stone compass rose measuring 40 feet in diameter on his land. d’Arcangelo died December 17, 1998, in New York City.

The color serigraph by d’Arcangelo in the Fine Arts Collection was acquired via a trade with Grinnell College in 1992. Entitled June Moon, it was created in 1969 and is 37 out of an edition of 120. The serigraph is from his Gulf series. It features a four panel image of a rising “Gulf” moon over a dark highway.

Ref: 1988-1989 Printworld Directory of Contemporary Prints and Prices; d’Arcangelo, Allan. Allan d’Arcangelo: Paintings of the Early Sixties. Purchase, NY: Neuberger Museum, 1978; Allan d’Arcangelo: Paintings 1963-1970. Philadelphia: Institute of Contemporary Art, 1971; Livingstone, Marco. Pop Art: A Continuing History. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1990; “Allan d’Arcangelo, 68, Painter of Pop Images.” Obituary. The New York Times, December 23, 1998; spaightwoodgalleries.com; Fine Arts Collection files

Updated 03/12/2009