“Life is a Carnival: from the Figurative to the Abstract,” a UMVA (Union of Maine Visual Artists) art exhibition, opens at the Waldo Theatre, 916 Main St., Waldoboro, on July 6 and runs to Aug. 4.
Over a dozen artists are showing prints, photography, paintings and more in the spirit of one of UMVA founders, Carlo Pittore. Some of Pittore’s work will be included in the exhibition as well. The documentary film “CARLO … and his Merry Band of Artists,” by Richard Kane, the latest film in the Maine Masters series, will screen July 25 at 7 p.m. (runs one hour and 17 minutes) with a reception to follow.
The “CARLO” documentary will also screen at Nomad, 14 Main St., Brunswick, at 5 p.m. Aug. 1 and 2 p.m. Aug. 4 in conjunction with the UMVA art exhibition “Then and Now: Works by the Early UMVA Cast,” which runs throughout August at Nomad, as well as the Colonial Theater, 163 High St., Belfast, at 7 p.m. Aug. 13. Contact each venue for ticket prices.
Pittore, In addition to being one of the UMVA founders in 1975, also created “The Academy of Carlo Pittore” in 1987 at his studio in Bowdoinham. Here he invited artists from all over to come and share their knowledge and talents in an academic forum, while he hosted drawing classes, painted and drew the artists (and models) and also cooked for them. The full film portrait of Pittore that emerges in interviews with those who knew him is a collage of Neal Cassady, Pablo Picasso and Emeril Lagasse.
From 1978 to 1980, Pittore was a council member for the “Comprehensive Employment Training Act Artists Project” in New York City. Just before his death in 2005, the Maine College of Art awarded Pittore an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts.
The Carlo Pittore Foundation for the Figurative Arts was founded in 2006. Pittore was a thoroughgoing humanist devoted to the human figure. He drew and painted just about everyone he knew. His nudes and portraits are very much like the man himself — bold, boisterous even, frank, sensuous and uncompromising. His oeuvre includes paintings of boxers, carnival performers, and modern takes on classical paintings, portraits, self-portraits, nudes, landscapes, mail art and his comic drawings.
A figurative painter in the modernist manner of Lucian Freud and Alice Neel, Pittore painted in the figurative expressionist and portraiture style; focusing mainly on the nude form of study. On account of this, critics and objectors occasionally viewed his work as “erotic” rather than objective art. Throughout his life, Pittore was extremely vocal toward such critics and what he perceived to be “ignorance” toward his art or art in general. He refused the title of Gay artist. He did not shy away from either voicing his opinion in letters to the editor or removing his exhibits from art galleries or public showings. His exhibit of Boxers at a Portland restaurant was removed by the owner after patrons complained of their gruesome nature. The colors red and green (symbols of the Italian flag) were two essential components in Pittore’s work that defined his belief and understanding of complementary palette application.
The contrast of these two color schemes arise time and again throughout his works; as can be seen in “Portrait of Blair Tily” (1987), “Opera — Self Portrait” (1981), “La Buffonera” (1983), and “Portrait of a Skeptic” (1996). Pittore’s “Lincoln Portrait Series” was the only oil-on-canvas medium in which he worked without color. For this, he painted entirely in black and white due to the fact that the portraits were modeled after 19th-century photographs of Abraham Lincoln. Pittore died in 2005 from cancer.
The UMVA, founded in 1975, is a nonprofit organization that promotes and advocates for the visual arts, artists and all arts supporters. Learn more at www.theumva.org.
