Ettore DeGrazia
Ettore "Ted" DeGrazia (June 14 1909 – September 17 1982) was an American impressionist, western-pop, painter, sculptor, and lithographer. Self-described as "the world's most reproduced artist", DeGrazia is known for his pastel images of Native American children of the American Southwest and other Western scenes.
Born to an Italian copper miner in Morenci, Arizona Territory, DeGrazia's graduation from Morenci High School was delayed to the age of 23 by a four-year family trip to Italy beginning in 1920. In the early 1940s he studied under Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco, assisting wirh murals at the Placio Nacional and the Hospital de Jesus. The two artists sponsored an exhibit of his paintings at Palacio de belles Artes and the young artist was featured in Mexico City's Hoy Magazine. He returned to the University of Arizona, studying under Katherine Kitt where he received degrees in art and music.
In 1944, DeGrazia built his first gallery from adobe on the corner of Prince and Campbell Road. In 1951, he started work on what would become the DeGrazia Gallery in the Sun Historic District with the building of the Mission in the Sun and his home near the corner of Swan and Skyline roads. The DeGrazia Gallery in the Sun was built in 1965. Artists and friends who spent time at the new gallery included Thomas Hart Benton, Olaf Wieghorst, Jack Van Ryder, Pete Martinez and Ross Santee. In 2006, the ten-acre property, now a museum of DeGrazia's work, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
DeGrazia's work first appeared in Arizona Highways magazine in 1941. In 1960, DeGrazia received a commission to produce cover art for UNICEF greeting cards. His designs have appeared on lithographs, collector plates, greeting cards, and in a series of Hummel figurines.
In 1976, Degrazia engaged in a protest against inheritance taxes that based the assessed value on market values of his work. The artist claimed the IRS rulings made him "a millionaire on paper and my heirs will have to pay taxes for which there is no money." In his well-publicized protest, Degrazia rode horseback into the Superstition Mountains and burned 100 of his paintings[1].
References
- ^ "Ettore DeGrazia, 73, Burned Paintings to Protest Taxes". New York Times. September 18 1982.
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Bibliography
- Peter H. Falk (1985). Who Was Who in American Art. Sound View Press. ISBN 0-932087-00-0.
- Peggy Samuels, Harold Samuels (1976). The Illustrated Biographical Encyclopedia of Artists of the American West. Doubleday & Company. ISBN 0-385-01730-8.
- Peggy Samuels, Harold Samuels (1982). Contemporary Western Artists. Bonanza Books, Distributed by Crown. ISBN 0-517-45946-9.