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Estimate: $ 700 - $ 1,000
LETTERIO CALAPAI Dream of the Unforeseen.
Etching and engraving, 1947. 300x447 mm; 11 7/8x17 5/8 inches, full margins. Signed, titled and numbered 11/50 in pencil, lower margin. A very good, well-inked impression.
Born to Sicilain immigrants and raised in Boston, Letterio Calapai (1902-1993) was exposed to the arts at an early age. His father recited poetry, his mother played the piano and often Calapai visited the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and Fogg Art Museum in Cambridge, where he studied the Old Masters, once declaring that 'their realism was my goal." Showing great promise in high school, particularly as a draftsman, his art history teacher bought him a set of paints and brushes for his graduation, which encouraged him to seriously pursue art.
He received a two-year scholarship to the School of Fine Arts and Crafts in Boston and excelled in figure painting under the instruction of Charles Hopkinson. An unfortunate fire in the summer of 1928 destroyed nearly all of Calapai's work that he was to submit to a competition. His opportunity to study in Florence, Italy, was ruined as a result and in an effort to forget it all, he moved to New York. There, he began work in a lithographic office and took drawing and sculpting classes at the Art Students League and Beaux Arts Institute of Design before finally coming to Atelier 17, where he expanded his artistic repertoire to include printmaking.
In 1946, Calapi began to explore abstract forms, even utilizing Hayter's theory of 'space visualized through lines in space of infinite dimensionality'. His interests would also span the work of the Social Realists, German Expressionists and Post-Expressionists, influencing his increasingly fantastical and imaginative approach, apparent in lots 443 and 44.
While Calapai absorbed new ideas from established artists and movements, he simultaneously imparted his knowledge to promising young artists. In addition to working as a printmaker, Calapai dedicated himself to teaching art, founding the Graphic Arts Department at the Albright Art School in Buffalo (1949-55) then teaching at the New School for Social Research (1955-65). He also established the Intaglio Workshop for Advanced Printmaking in New York (1962-65).
