Screenprint - Memory #2 [Signed]

[Roosevelt, NJ: S.i., ca.1955]. First Edition. One of 40 numbered copies, captioned and signed by the artist in brown pencil along the lower margin, this being copy no.3. Original screenprint, 67cm x 52cm (approx. 26" x 21"). A few faint, tiny foxed spots, else Fine.

Prestopino was a key figure among the New York school of artists who coalesced around Ben Shahn in the WPA village of Roosevelt, New Jersey in the late Thirties and Forties. Like Shahn, Prestopino maintained a lifelong devotion to the human figure, refusing to bow to the vogue for pure abstraction that overtook the art establishment after the Second World War (though abstract elements (truncated) certainly made their way into his work, especially by the mid-Fif-
ties). Also like Shahn, social and political themes are a constant presence in Prestopino’s work: working-class subjects, many drawn from Prestopino’s experiences growing up in New York’s Little Italy, appear in many of his paintings and prints. He was one of the few white painters of his era to focus on African-American subjects, and his nuanced portraits of Harlem life (two of which are offered here) are among his most sensitive and sympathetic works.
Harlem Wednesday, a 1958 film collaboration with jazz saxophonist and composer Benny Carter, featured a film-montage of Prestopino’s Harlem paintings and prints over Carter’s post-bop soundtrack; the film, produced and directed by the Hubley Studio, won first prize at the inaugural Venice Film Festival. (Inventory #: 83439)