News and Events - Professor Jon Ippolito
Donates Father's Paintings to UMaine Museum of Art
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Sunset Regatta by Angelo Ippolito |
Jon Ippolito, an assistant
professor of new media who believes that art should be displayed
and not hidden away in a closet, has donated to the University
of Maine Museum of Art eight oil paintings by his father, Angelo
Ippolito, internationally exhibited artist and renowned member
of the New York School of abstract expressionism.
Works by
Angelo Ippolito, who died in 2001, are in the permanent
collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney
Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art and the
Smithsonian Institution. His paintings also hang in numerous
corporate, university and private collections in Europe.
Now Maine
residents will be able to see Angelo Ippolito’s oils, famous for
their bright, colorful, abstract shapes. The works are planned
to be unveiled late next fall at the UMaine museum in Norumbega
Hall, downtown Bangor, as part of an Angelo Ippolito exhibition.
“I feel
that the best place to store a painting is on the wall at a
museum,” says Jon. “And my father would be happy to find that
was the destination.”
The
paintings, valued at an estimated $350,000, will provide a
significant boost to Campaign Maine, the University’s six-year,
$150 million comprehensive capital campaign.
Angelo
Ippolito was a “pretty colorful character,” says his son. Born
in Italy in 1922, he came to New York when he was nine. Unable
to speak English, he dropped out of school and enrolled in art
classes at the Brooklyn Museum. After serving in World War II,
he continued to study art both in the U.S. and in Europe. He
helped found The Tanager, one of the first art galleries in New
York City’s downtown, which became the “epicenter of the art
world.”
A tenured
professor despite never having graduated from high school,
Angelo Ippolito served as faculty or artist-in-residence at a
number of universities including Michigan State University,
Binghamton University, Stanford University and the University of
California at Berkeley.
Angelo
enjoyed watching the blossoming young artists find their
personal niche, according to Jon. “He believed in listening to
students and helping each one find her own voice.”
Charged
with making sure his father’s art “goes to good homes,” Jon says
that UMaine’s museum struck him as the perfect spot for the
paintings, some of which are 10 feet wide. “The space has to be
capacious and airy and befitting the scale and ambition of these
works. The UMaine Museum of Art fits the bill.”
Professor Laurie Hicks,
interim director of UMaine’s museum, says the paintings are a
welcome addition. “This is a very substantial gift that’s going
to move the museum toward a broader sense of itself. I’m excited
by the fact that we’re going to exhibit them in the very near
future.”
Jon, who
says he will enjoy having some of his father’s paintings in his
own backyard, was impressed with the dedication and enthusiasm
of Professor Hicks and her staff.
“They not
only welcomed my gift but also very quickly put together the
legal, financial and logistical instruments to make this happen.
I’m so grateful to them for helping make this possible.”
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