The Life and Artistic Legacy of Angelo Ippolito
Angelo Ippolito was an American painter and draftsperson born in Sant'Arsenio, Italy. After his family immigrated to the United States when he was nine years old, he served in the Philippines during World War II. His formal artistic training included studying with Amédée Ozenfant and John Ferren in New York, as well as Afro in Rome. Ippolito played a pivotal role in the postwar New York art scene by co-founding the Tanager Gallery in 1952 alongside Fred Mitchell, Lois Dodd, William King, and Charles Cajori. This artist-run downtown gallery helped inaugurate the Tenth Street-avant-garde scene.
His career included significant academic roles, serving as an artist-in-residence at the University of California at Berkeley and as a professor of art at both Michigan State University and Binghamton University. His work has been exhibited in international venues such as the Carnegie International and the São Paulo Biennale. His paintings are held in prestigious collections, including:
Evolution of Style and Technique
Ippolito is best known for his color field oils on canvas, a style that explored abstract analogies to landscape visions. His early works often suggested earth, horizon lines, and sky, frequently fusing the realms of land and air into a single coloristic unity. As his practice evolved, his canvases from the later 1960s explored the abstract possibilities of the midwestern U.S. landscape. By the 1970s, his paintings became more expansive and bright-hued, characterized by the use of bold areas of hot color. In his later decades, his work diverged from landscape roots to explore atmospheric visions, guided by his philosophy: "When I find the color of the painting I find the form."
