Peter Paone has long been considered one of the major figural painters.

"The Italians," includes a mix of highly detailed, finished drawings and paintings meant as an evocation of South Philly and the artist's youth there.

Paone makes a real distinction between Italians and Italian-Americans. His parents are Italian, but he and his siblings are Italian-Americans.

Italian art is obsessed with the human figure, and with a certain kind of public drama involving explicit emotional content. The figure both expresses common human emotions and creates its own abstract designs, and in the greatest works of the Italian canon these two reinforce each other with inexpressible subtlety.

Paone sees the Italians in this country pursuing a distinctly Mediterranean, communal way of life that maintains cultural traditions and invokes a very physical appreciation of experience, but is never sentimental.

Paone studied first at the eccentric Barnes Foundation in Merion, Pa. 1953-54, and went on the more mainstream Philadelphia College of Art, receiving a BFA in 1958.

Paone has taught at the Philadelphia College of Art, the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, and since 1979, he has been on the faculty of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. Before "The Italians" in Jersey City, the artist had not had a museum exhibition in over 20 years.
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HUMAN FIGURE 'CAPTURES' SOUTH PHILLY ITALIAN-AMERICAN

New Jersey Star Ledger
By Dan Bischoff
Star-Ledger Staff
Sunday, May 09, 2004

Peter Paone is a painter and draftsman of the old school. He was born in Philadelphia in 1936 in the traditionally Italian area known as South Philly, where English was often a second language.

Paone's show at the Jersey City Museum, "The Italians," which continues through June 27, includes a mix of highly detailed, finished drawings and paintings done in a slightly more astringent style than the drawings. It is meant as an evocation of South Philly and the artist's youth there.

Concurrent with the Paone show, the Jersey City Museum is hosting seminars on race (Are the Italians a race?) that examine cultural differences that seem to build walls as high as the race barrier, like connections to the home country, native foods, and, presumably, traditional art forms.

"I know Paone makes a real distinction between Italians and Italian-Americans. His parents are Italian, but he and his siblings are Italian-Americans," says Alejandro Anreus, former chief curator at the Jersey City Museum who organized this show and now teaches at William Paterson University in Wayne. "You can tell from his style that he was an assistant to Ben Shahn.

"But what I find particularly interesting is the way Paone, like a Latino, sees the Italians in this country pursuing a distinctly Mediterranean, communal way of life that maintains cultural traditions and invokes a very physical appreciation of experience." But Paone is never sentimental, Anreus said.

Italian art is obsessed with the human figure, and with a certain kind of public drama involving explicit emotional content. The figure both expresses common human emotions and creates its own abstract designs, and in the greatest works of the Italian canon these two reinforce each other with inexpressible subtlety.

Paone's work is entirely figural. One might even go farther and see elements of another, 400-year-old Italian innovation, caricature, in many of these works. Their abstract design, on the other hand, is often subservient to the demands of physiognomy. Paone's "The Family Feeding" (1993-94), for example, brings a multigenerational cast of characters to life, both invoking stereotypes and breaking them down, dissolving Italian-Americans into their individual personalities. But the overall design is a kind of bulbous frieze that squeezes onto every spare inch of canvas, as if the people -- or their personalities -- were about to burst the frame...

Paone is not so religious, at least not overtly. It's the human clay for him. In "Gathering Figs" (1995), we see Paone himself, standing with his father by the family's fig tree, long a symbol of family feeling in Italian art.

Paone got his first taste of artistic education at the eccentric Barnes Foundation in Merion, Pa., which offers scholarships to disadvantaged and minority art students to study in a Modern-masterpiece-stuffed mansion built by a cough-drop king. Paone was there 1953-54, and he quickly went on to a more mainstream school, graduating with a B.F.A. from the Philadelphia College of Art in 1958.

The sure quality of Paone's draftsmanship was appreciated early on. He was included in "The Insiders," a 1960 book by Selden Rodman that tried to promote a number of major figural painters, ranging from José Clemente Orozco and Ben Shahn to Leonard Baskin, at the very height of Abstract Expressionism's dominance in the art world. Like all these artists, Paone remained loyal to figuration throughout the era of abstraction, and to his vision of social justice -- two themes that are intimately related in the history of contemporary art.

But one book alone could not reverse the trend of history. Artists of his generation who could not make the transition to Abstract "pure" painting usually had to go their own way. Paone was awarded a Guggenheim grant to study miniature painting technique in London from 1966-'69.

Back in this country, Paone has taught at the Philadelphia College of Art and the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, and, since 1979, he has been on the faculty of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. Before "The Italians" in Jersey City, the artist had not had a museum exhibition in over 20 years, not since a 1983 show at the Pennsylvania Academy.

Whatever you think of Paone's style and subject, anyone who continued to paint the human figure during the long decades of Abstract dominance cares about art in a personal way.

Human figure 'captures' South Philly Italian-American
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