Luigi Lucioni
Birth Date: November 4, 1900
Death Date: July 22, 1988
Artist Gallery
For many Americans 1931 was a year to forget; the national economy was stagnant, unemployment reached sixteen percent, and the average annual national wage was $1,850.00. But for the painter and etcher Luigi Lucioni it was a banner year. Not only were his pictures shown at nine different museums, including the Cleveland Museum of Art, but he had his fourth one-man show at the Ferargil Galleries, his New York dealer. Of Italian birth, Lucioni arrived at New York’s Elis Island in 1911 with his mother and three sisters. Their emigration was preceded by his father, Angelo, a tin-and-coppersmith, who had come to New York in 1906 searching for work. The home they left behind was in Malnate, a mountain town in northern Lombardy, only twenty five miles from Milan and a short distance from the border with Switzerland. Here, even as a boy, Luicioni studied under local stonecutters and made ornamental drawings of Classical and Renaissance motifs for architectural decoration. As a teenager in New York, Lucioni took classes first at Cooper Union and later at the National Academy of Design. There his classes included one in etching, which had only been taught at the Academy since 1894. Perhaps the most momentous event of Lucioni’s youthful career occurred in 1924, when he was offered a Tiffany Foundation scholarship. The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation was created by Louis Comfort Tiffany, son of the founder of Tiffany Company. The foundation operated a summer retreat for young artists and craft people. One of the most important catalytic events of his career occurred in 1930 when he met Electra Havemeyer Webb who became one of his most single important art patron for the next two decades. It was not until 1982 that Lucioni finally acknowledged that age was catching up, and he ceased etching - although he continued to paint until he reached the age of 88. Late in life when he was asked about the purpose of his paintings, his response was as real and honest as he believed his pictures to be: “I don’t know if there’s any purpose but I think the purpose of my art is to keep me alive and to be interested in life and that’s a good enough purpose, don’t you think? And I think most artists are that way, I mean, interested in what they are doing and keeping them alive.”