Artist

Victor Joseph Gatto

born New York City 1893-died Miami, FL 1965
Media - gatto,-victor-joseph.jpg - 90005
© 1955 Sterling Strauser.
Also known as
  • Joseph Gatto
  • Joe Gatto
Born
New York, New York, United States
Died
Miami, Florida, United States
Biography

"Joe" Gatto, an Italian Catholic, rarely went to church, but in his religious visionary images (many sparked by his memories of a near-fatal illness) Gatto tells a story of personal importance. Created early in his career, Suffering Christ is his most austere and solemn work [SAAM 1986.65.114]. The image of Christ bears some resemblance to the artist's slight, athletic body. Most of Gatto's paintings—scenes of everyday life in New York, exotic cultures, historical events, and tropical episodes —are packed with endless detail built up with many layers of minute brushstrokes. Gatto, a bachelor and a former featherweight boxer, lived with his widowed stepmother in the section of New York known as "Little Italy." Painters Elaine and Willem De Kooning lived in the next apartment in the late 1930s, and Elaine De Kooning and other artists encouraged Gatto's painting. His work received critical acclaim through several exhibitions in New York galleries during the 1940s and 1950s, his most productive period.

Lynda Roscoe Hartigan Made with Passion: The Hemphill Folk Art Collection in the National Museum of American Art (Washington, D.C. and London: National Museum of American Art with the Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990)

Works by this artist (6 items)

Benjamin Trott, John Cleves Short, 19th century, watercolor on ivory, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Mary Elizabeth Spencer, 1999.27.48
John Cleves Short
Date19th century
watercolor on ivory
Not on view
Benjamin Trott, Anne Hume Shippen, ca. 1796, watercolor on ivory, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Natalie Brooks Sears Shippen and William Brush Shippen, 1999.87.1
Anne Hume Shippen
Dateca. 1796
watercolor on ivory
Not on view
Benjamin Trott, Jane Stone, ca. 1805, watercolor on ivory, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Catherine Walden Myer Fund, 1934.11.1
Jane Stone
Dateca. 1805
watercolor on ivory
Not on view
Benjamin Trott, Portrait of a Gentleman with Initials J. B., ca. 1795, watercolor on ivory, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Catherine Walden Myer Fund, 1954.6.4
Portrait of a Gentleman with Initials J. B.
Dateca. 1795
watercolor on ivory
Not on view