Discipline: Visual Art – sculpture

Salvatore Romano

Discipline: Visual Art – sculpture
Region: New York, NY
MacDowell Fellowships: 1980, 1981

Salvatore Romano (1925-2015)

From his website:

Salvatore Romano was born on September 12, 1925, in Cliffside, New Jersey. He served in the U.S. Navy in the 1940s. Sal Romano studied painting and drawing at the Art Students League in New York and at the Académie de la Grande Chaumiere in Paris during the 1950s. For five decades his work has been exhibited in New York galleries in Soho and Chelsea, and his art has also been shown in Brazil and Italy. He was a member of the Brata Gallery, a cooperative gallery in New York that included many artists involved with Minimalism. In 1965 Romano was included in the iconic exhibition “Primary Structures” at the Jewish Museum. This show was followed by many others, including major installations—some involving water and kinetic elements—at the Sculpture Center in Manhattan, at the Brooklyn Bridge and at Socrates Sculpture Park, in Long Island City. During the 1970s Romano’s work grew to the ambitious scale and proportions found in the art of Minimalists Ronald Bladen and Tony Smith, among others. He was a sculpture professor at the City University of New York’s Lehman College for 30 years. Exhibitions of his constructions in copper and brass were held at Rutgers University and at numerous galleries in New York City and Upstate New York. In his artist’s statement, Romano said, “The theme of my work remains complexity and contradiction. My sculpture embodies the idea of change, of fluidity of motion on the one hand, and of minimal forms pushed to their essence, in some instances made transparent, in others impermeable bulk, but in every case serving as vehicles of movement and reflection.” Salvatore Romano, an artist, resided in Soho with his family since 1974. He died on September 18, 2015 at the age of 90.

Studios

Eastman

Salvatore Romano worked in the Eastman studio.

Thanks to the generous support of MacDowell Fellow and board member Louise Eastman, this century-old farm building was reinvented as a modern, energy efficient live and workspace for visual artists. Originally built in 1915 to house a forge and provide storage when the residency program was expanding, this small barn was simply converted for…

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