Ezio Martinelli Biography

Ezio Martinelli

American

1913–1981

Biography

See a list of available inventory for Ezio Martinelli
Ezio Martinelli (1913-1981), printmaker, painter, sculptor and teacher, was born in West Hoboken, New Jersey on November 27, 1913. His art training began in 1931 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna, Italy, followed by studies at the National Academy of Design in New York (1932 to 1936) under Leon Kroll, Gifford Beal, and Ivan Olinsky, and with Robert Ingersoll Aitken at the Art Students League. He worked for the Works Progress Administration's Fedeal Art Project, and also took courses at the Barnes Foundation in Merion, Pennsylvania.

In the early 1940s Martinelli turned his attention to printmaking, working with Stanley William Hayter at Atelier 17 in New York. Martinelli taught Graphic Arts at the Philadelphia Museum School and the Pennsylvania School of Industrial Arts between 1946 and 1949. Between the years 1949 and 1975, he was Professor of Art at the Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York teaching painting and sculpture. He also taught Graphic Arts at Parsons School of Design in New York and at the Skowhegen School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine.

Ezio Martinelli was awarded Guggenheim Foundation fellowships between 1956 and 1962, a Tiffany Foundation fellowship in 1964, and the National Institute of Arts and Letters award in 1966. In addition to being in the collections of the Hunterian Museum and University Art Collection in Glasgow, Whitney Museum of American Art, Guggenheim Museum, Newark Museum, Seattle Museum, and Art Institute of Chicago, his aluminum sculpture is on the grounds of the United Nations General Assembly Building in New York, facing the East River.

Ezio Martinelli died on July 1, 1981 at age 68 in upstate New York and his papers are housed at Syracuse University.

Selected solo exhibitions:
1943: Philip Regan Gallery, Pennsylvania
1946, '47, '52, '55, '57, '59, '64, '66: The Willard Gallery, New York City
1956: Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis, Minnesota
1956, '68: Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington
1962: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
1968: University of Minnesota; Benson Gallery, East Hampton, New York

Selected group exhibitions:
1934: Society of Independent Artists, New York City
1936: Fedeal Art Project Gallery, NYC
1939: American Contemporary Art Gallery, NYC
1940: Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art
1942, '43, '44: Peggy Guggenheim's The Art of This Century Gallery, Spring Salon for Young Artists, NYC
1944: Philadelphia Print Club 
1948, '56, '60, '62, '64, '66: Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC
1949: Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York
1952: Drawings from Twelve Countries, Art Institute of Chicago
1955, '56: American Watercolors in France, Paris
1956: Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; American Federation of Arts (AFA), NYC; "Monumentality in Modern Sculpture," Contemporary Arts Museum (CAM), Houston, TX
1957: "Irons in the Fire: An Exhibition of Metal Sculpture," CAM; "Eight American Artists - Europe Edition," traveling exh.; "Major Work, Minor Scale," AFA
1959: "Carnegie International," Carnegie Int'; Pittsburgh, PA; Katonah Museum of Art, NY
1959, '66: National Institute of Art and Letters, NYC
1960: "Aspect de la Sculpture Americaine," Galerie Bernard, Paris, France
1962: "The Architectural League of New York: National Gold Medal Exhibition of the Building Arts: A Survey of American Sculptures, Late 18th Century to 1962," Newark Museum, NJ
1965: "Major 19th and 20th Century Drawings," Gallery of Modern Art, NYC; "White on White," DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, NB; "The Drawing Society National Exhibition," AFA
1966: "Made of Iron," Fine Arts Gallery, Univ. of St. Thomas, Houston, TX
1971: "Modern Sculptures - Their Drawings, Watercolors," Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, New York
 

See a list of available inventory for Ezio Martinelli