Artist Anthony Triano

A long time ago, a lifetime it seems, when I was running a graphic design / marketing studio, I agreed to design a simple site for the widow of an artist and former Seton Hall University artist-in-residence, Anthony Triano (1928–1997). She invited me over to see some of his work and I did not expect the enormous stash of canvases, mostly framed on the walls, propped on the floors leaning against the walls, and, in the basement, simply stacked one atop another. I had a camera with me and with her help we brought a representation of what she liked best outside one by one for me to photo in the day’s natural light.

She was at a loss what to do with the collection, how to price things, and so was I. I told her I was out of my depth, but I could certainly offer a discounted price for site design, and throw in two years of web hosting for free after which it would be at my cost (cheap), billed annually. She agreed and I took my digital photos, a collection of film slides of a series based on James Joyce’s Portrait of an Artist, some printed materials from solo art installations, press clippings, and a list of where his works can be viewed, some even in China.

See below for the series of James Joyce paintings (not complete, as some were missing from the Internet Archives)

The Wikipedia page I put up for Anthony Triano still exists, but many of the photos I took of his works have been taken down for ‘lack of attribution’ despite me indicating I took the photos at the home of the artist and was listed as the Estate of Anthony Triano’s web contact (waybackmachine has it still).

One of the problems that cropped up immediately on the website’s launch was I was swamped with emails from people wanting appraisals of Triano works they owned. The point of the modest site was to perhaps sell some of Triano’s finer large works to help clear out the massive, well, I can’t call it clutter as art is not ‘clutter’, but for want of another word…, those canvases hindered proper movement in some rooms.

Turns out Triano would use his art as a means to barter for services rather than sell them and establish a record of pricing his work in the art market. Note to young artists: learn from this. So instead of paying his dentist to fill a cavity, he’d bring over a painting to barter. His art was his currency, but mostly illiquid without him doing the transaction.

Long story short, I’d like to make this post about Anthony Triano.

Bio

Famous as a painter, sculptor, illustrator and educator, Anthony Triano has been one of our most versatile and prolific artists. He is noted for his unique ability to embody the essence of humanity and nature upon large canvases, in fluent terra cotta sculptures and on jewel-like surfaces with radiant monumentality.

At the end of World War II, he enrolled at the Newark School of Fine Arts, where he studied under the GI Bill and became a friend and apprentice to the great sculptor Reuben Nakian. This affiliation presented an early sophistication and association with Pollack, DeKooning, Kline, Charles Egan and other dynamic personalities of the greatest art adventure of the 20th century.

Nakian and Triano pictured above

True to the legacy of this experience, Triano devoted his life to the study and development of a significantly universal style. His creations are constantly evolving in such series as: Each Day, The Wonders, Heaven and Earth, Geo, The Passions, A Sound of Angels, The Elegance of Women and The Olympians. His works have been exhibited in 37 one-man shows by prominent galleries, corporations and museums, featured in numerous publications and the subject of 12 television programs.

Thousands of his works are in private and public collections, including: The Newark Museum, the Montclair Art Museum, the Lowe Museum in Coral Gables, the New York Lithographic Society, Abbott Laboratories, the Hartford Art Foundation, the Monmouth Historical Society, Johnson and Johnson, J.L. Hudson, House and Garden Magazine, Seton Hall University and Law School, the University of Alabama, William Paterson University, Wykeham Rise, the Golden Lemon on St. Kitts, the Library of Congress and Wuhan University in the People’s Republic of China.

In 1971 Triano was appointed artist-in-residence at Seton Hall University and became a full-time professor the following year. This position added a new dimension to his constant research, greatly increased his artistic powers and enabled him to extend his legacy to others.

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man series

Art inspired by James Joyce’s first novel.

CLONGOWES | He was caught in the whirl of a scrimmage and, fearful of the flashing eyes and muddy botts, bent down to look through the legs. The fellows were struggling and groaning and their legs were rubbing and kicking and stamping.

IN A PUB | Stephen watched the three glasses being raised from the counter as his father and his two cronies drank to the memory of their past. An abyss of fortune or of temperament sundered him from them.

DOOMSDAY | The stars of heaven were falling - the sun - had become as sackcloth - the moon was bloodred - his sins, the jeweleyed harlots of his imagination, fled before the hurricane squeaking like mice in their terror and huddled under a mane of hair.

THE DARKNESS OF HELL | For, remember, the fire of hell gives forth no light - amid which the bodies are heaped one upon another without even a glimpse of air.

A HUMBLE REQUEST | A plain of peace whereon ant like men laboured in brotherhood, their dead sleeping under quiet mounds.

ETERNITY | What mind of man can understand it? - Imagine a mountain of sand a million miles broad - at the end of every million years a little bird came - and carried away in its beak a tiny grain of that sand. At the end of all those billions and trillions of years eternity would have scarcely begun.

STEPHEN’S PERSONAL HELL | A field of stiff weeds and thistles and tufted nettlebunches - a faint marshlight struggled upwards from all the ordure - creatures were in the field - they moved in slow circles - soft language issuing from their lips - that was his hell - stinking, bestial, malignant.

ASLEEP AMID A RING OF SAND KNOLLS | He felt above him the vast indifferent dome and the calm processes of the heavenly bodies; and the earth beneath him, the earth that had borne him, had taken him to her breast.

SYMBOL OF DEPARTURE OR OF LONELINESS? | Creatures of the air have their knowledge and know their times and seasons - unlike man - have not perverted that order by reason - and for ages men had gazed upwards as he was gazing at birds in flight.

TROUBLED DREAM BEFORE LEAVING HOME | A long curving gallery. From the floor ascend pillars of dark vapours. It is peopled by the images of fabulous kings set in stone - the errors of men go up before them for ever as dark vapours.

DREAM CONTINUES | Strange figures advance from a cave - not as tall as men - their faces are phosphorescent - they peer at me and their eyes seem to ask me something. They do not speak.

LIFE IS SHORT BUT ART IS ETERNAL | I desire to press in my arms the loveliness which has not yet come into the world.

The “Joyce” series is but one style of his (I especially like some of his more abstract work), and he sculpted small pieces well, too, where his subject matter came mostly from Greek mythology.

Leda and the Swan

Along the Path, 1988 / acrylic, 24x36

Dance of Life, 1971 / oil on canvas, 48x72

Shows / Publications