Fasanella's two main messages were: 
(1) In order to properly celebrate your heritage, You Must "Know Your Roots"!!! 
    "Remember who you are" Get Smart, Read. 
(2) When you suffer injustice,  "Don't Mourn, Organize".
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Thanks to H-ITAM (Ben Lawton, Editor)

"KNOW YOUR ROOTS. REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE."
Ralph Fasanella (1914-1997)

RALPH FASANELLA¹S AMERICA
The New-York Historical Society, 
West 77th Street and Central Park West,NYC,NY
March 1 ­ July 14, 2001

The New-York Historical Society, in association with the New York State 
Historical Association, is pleased to announce a major retrospective on the 
life and work of folk artist and labor activist Ralph Fasanella.

Ralph Fasanella¹s America, which runs March 1 ­ July 14, 2002, contains fifty 
examples of the artists¹ greatest work. A second-generation Italian-American 
immigrant, Fasanella painted what he knew: New York¹s garment industry, its 
diverse ethnographic make-up, trade unionism and grassroots American 
politics. Fasanella captured the struggles and triumphs of working people in 
large, colorful, and detailed paintings. Appropriately, the paintings in this 
exhibition illustrate both Fasanella¹s culture and the manner in which he 
chose to immortalize it. The project will also include a variety of public 
programs designed to explore working class history, immigrant life, and 
Fasanella¹s work in depth. A 176 page, fully-illustrated
book will accompany the exhibition.

Culled from several different collections, the exhibition includes the most 
significant paintings from the 1940s through the 1990s. The catalog will 
include a biographical essay, color illustrations, and a checklist of all the 
paintings in the exhibition. By treating Fasanella¹s work in a comprehensive 
manner, this exhibition demonstrates how the artists¹s life and times 
influenced his art. The curator is Paul S. D¹Ambrosio, Chief Curator of the 
Fenimore Art Museum, who is the leading expert on Fasanella.

ABOUT FASANELLA
Ralph Fasanella was a self-taught artist who created a stunning and diverse 
body of work depicting labor history, American politics, and urban 
working-class life. As he had no formal training of any kind, his works bear 
a visceral and direct relationship to the culture of the streets, tenements 
and sweatshops. Fasanella was born to Italian immigrants in New York City. 
His father was an ice deliveryman and his mother worked in the garment 
delivery industry. The most formative influences on Fasanella¹s life were his 
parents: his father introduced him to the physical rigors of working class 
life, while his socially-conscious mother taught him about working-class 
struggle and the value of self-education. Fasanella¹s political beliefs were 
radicalized by the Great Depression, and he became active in antifascist and 
trade unionist causes. His antifascist zeal lead him to volunteer for duty in 
the International Brigades fighting fascism in Spain, where he served from 
1937 to 1938. Upon his return to New York City, Fasanella became an organizer 
for various unions.

In 1944, disillusioned by the labor movement¹s growing distance from the 
working class culture he portrayed in his paintings, and plagued by a painful 
sensation in his fingers, Fasanella started to draw. The result was an 
immediate outpouring of creative energy; Fasanella left organizing and began 
to paint full time. He painted obsessively, capturing the vibrant moods of 
the city and the tumult of American politics. For a brief time he received 
some critical notice for his work, and he befriended such artists as Robert 
Gwathmey and Ad Reinhardt. In 1950 he married Eva Lazorek, a schoolteacher 
who supported the couple through more than two decades of artistic obscurity 
and blacklisting by the FBI. In 1972 Fasanella was
featured in New York magazine and in an illustrated coffee-table book 
Fasanella¹s City. His large-scale, intricate paintings of urban life and 
American politics were then introduced to art critics and the public.

In the late 1970s, Fasanella spent two years in Lawrence, Massachusetts, 
researching the 1912 Bread and Roses strike. The result was a series of 
eighteen paintings depicting the life of the mill town¹s diverse immigrant 
populations and the events of the strike. The Lawrence series represents one 
of the largest and most significant bodies of historical painting by any 
American self-taught artist. In the 1980s and 1990s, Fasanella largely 
painted scenes that refined familiar subjects, such as urban neighborhoods, 
baseball and labor strikes. He died on December 16, 1997.
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MORE INFORMATION ON RALPH FASANELLA:

<A HREF="http://www.capital.net/~soialban/fasanlfr.html">Commentary on The 
Exhibition, RALPH FASANELLA'S AMERICA</A>
http://www.capital.net/~soialban/fasanlfr.html 
(Review by or friend Prof. Emeritus James Mancuso)

 <A HREF="http://miculturelink.h-net.msu.edu/curricula/painting.html">"Don't 
Mourn, Organize" Ralph Fasanella</A> 
http://miculturelink.h-net.msu.edu/curricula/painting.html

<A HREF="http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/1aa/1aa571.htm">Fun City: Celebrating the 
Life of Ralph Fasanella</A>
http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/1aa/1aa571.htm 
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Support
Ralph Fasanella¹s America was organized by the Fenimore Art Museum of the New 
York State Historical Association, Cooperstown, New York, with funding 
provided by The Judith Rothschild Foundation and the New York State Council 
on the Arts, a state agency. Programs at the New-York Historical Society are 
supported by the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency and the 
New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. The Historical Society also 
wishes to express its gratitude to Mr. Paul David Pope for his generosity. 
American Airlines is the official airline of the New-York Historical Society. 

The New-York Historical Society.Founded in 1804, the New-Historical Society 
has served as the collective memory of the city for nearly 200 years. The 
Society's rich collections include painting, sculpture, artifacts, 
photography, prints and a vast
research library in American history. The mission of the newly revitalized 
Society is to help New Yorkers appreciate and understand the origins of the 
city they know today.

The New-York Historical Society, located at West 77th Street and Central Park 
West, is open to the public from Tuesday to Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Admission is $5 for adults; $3 for students and seniors. For general 
information call (212) 873-3400. Press contact: Travis Stewart, 873-0509.