Robert Henry De Niro Sr (1922 - 1993)

Born 3 May 1922 in Syracuse, Onondaga County, New York, United States

Ancestors

Died 3 May 1993 at age 71 in Manhattan, New York City, New York County, New York, United States

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Biography

Robert De Niro Sr is Notable.

Robert De Niro, Sr. was a substantial contributor to post-war American art for his dedication to painterly representation. He used reality as a framework in which to evolve his intensely expressive brushstrokes and colors. This vivid, innovative, representational work established De Niro as a distinct figure in the Abstract Expressionist movement.

Early Life

Robert De Niro Sr was born 3 May 1922 in Syracuse, New York to Henry Martin De Niro (b. 1897 - d. 1976) and Helen M. O'Reilly (b. 1899 - d. 1999).^[1] Robert was the oldest of three siblings:^[2][3]

• Robert De Niro (b. 1922 - d. 1993)
• John De Niro (b. 1924)
• Joan De Niro (b. 1928)

As a young child, his family lived with his maternal grandfather, Dennis O'Reilly in Syracuse, New York. ^[2][4]

From 1939-1940, De Niro studied at Black Mountain College under Josef Albers, the Bauhaus master known for his color studies. While Albers' highly analytical approach to painting did not appeal to De Niro, the experience had a lasting impact. De Niro also studied at the Provincetown summer school of notable artist/teacher Hans Hofmann in 1939, 1941 and 1942. While there, he met fellow student Virginia Admiral, who he married in 1942.

Before marrying, the couple lived in a shack in the dunes near Provincetown. Robert worked in the local fish cannery and a they picked blueberries for pocket money and partied at an illegal bar run by Valeska Gert.^[5]

Shortly after, they moved into a loft on 14th Street in New York City.^[5] They surrounded themselves with an illustrious circle of friends, including writers Anaïs Nin and Henry Miller, playwright Tennessee Williams and poet Robert Duncan. "The place is cold, but the hallways and lofts are big and high-ceilinged and the only place possible and available to a painter," Nin recalled. "There is a lavatory outside, running water and washstand inside, and that is all. On weekends, the heat is turned off. The enormous windows which give on the deafening traffic noise of 14th Street have to be kept closed ... We drink sour wine out of paper cups." ^[5]

In 1943, shortly after their son Robert De Niro Jr was born, De Niro came out as gay and the couple separated.^[6] In 1944, De Niro had a relationship with the poet Robert Duncan.^[5] In 1953, they divorced.^[5]

Career

After studying with Hans Hoffman and Josef Albers, De Niro worked for five years at the Museum of Non-Objective Art.

In 1945, he was included in a group show at Peggy Guggenheim's Art of the This Century in New York, which was a leading gallery for abstract expressionists including Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell and Clyfford Still.

In 1949, a studio fire destroyed most of his work from this period.

In the 1950s, De Niro had a number of solo exhibitions at the Charles Egan Gallery in New York. The gallery featured the work of WIllem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Philip Guston and other abstract expressionists. Critics praised DeNiro's compositions filled with improvised areas of vibrant color that gave way to loosely painted still lifes and curvaceous nudes. By the mid-1950s, De Niro was regularly included in important group exhibitions such as the Whitney Annual, the Stable Annual, and the Jewish Museum. He was awarded a Longview Foundation award in 1958.

From 1961 to 1964 he traveled to Paris. Joseph Hirshhorn purchased a number of works, which are now in the permanent collection of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC.

In 1968, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, De Niro continued to exhibit in museums and galleries throughout the United States, including New York, San Francisco, Kansas City, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. He taught at several art schools and colleges including the New York Studio School, the Cooper Union, the New School for Social Research and the School of Visual Arts. De Niro was a visiting artist at Michigan State University's Department of Art in the spring of 1974.

Death and Burial:

Robert H De Niro died of cancer on 3 May 1993 in New York, New York. He was 71 years old.^[1][7] He is buried at Kensico Cemetery, Valhalla, Westchester County, New York.^[8]

Legacy

Bridging the gap between European Modernism and Abstract Expressionism Robert De Niro, Sr. (b. 1922 - d. 1993) deftly blended abstraction and representation, cleverly referencing European masters from Delacroix to Matisse. With his profound understanding of art history, De Niro maintained the tradition of representational painting, eschewing the tide of abstraction, championed by many of his contemporaries, remaining faithful to his own uncompromising vision. His works are expressionistic, radical stylizations that feature his signature post-Fauve palette with freely brushed areas of color defined by strong outlines. Characterized by his use of line, gesture, and movement, De Niro’s work is grounded in the act of painting and drawing. Through his bold, reductive arrangements of shapes and colors, he created rich visual experiences that resonate in his vital art.

Although influenced by the gestural panting of his Abstract Expressionist contemporaries, De Niro's aesthetic was primarily shaped through the subjects and styles of France's 19th-century artists and Europe's early modernist painters. De Niro helped to establish painterly representation as a specific, unique style in its own right, rather than a simple extension of existing European and American methods. The ongoing friction between reality and abstraction in De Niro's paintings sets them apart from those of his contemporaries. Almost all of his works are representational, but they are also very expressive, making bold, imaginative use of color, lines, and brushstrokes.^[9]

His work is included in a number of museum collections including: Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Arkansas Arts Center, Brooklyn Museum, Baltimore Museum of Art, The Butler Institute of American Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Crocker Art Museum, The Denver Art Museum, The Heckscher Museum of Art, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Kansas City Art Institute, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Academy Museum, Mint Museum, Parrish Art Museum, Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Wadsworth Atheneum, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, Yale University Art Gallery, and the Yellowstone Art Museum.

In 2010, his son Robert De Niro Jr. announced the creation of the Robert De Niro Sr. Prize, an annual $25,000 prize administered by the Tribeca Film Institute that "focuses on a mid-career American artist devoted to the pursuit of excellence and innovation in painting."^[10].

De Niro Sr. is the subject of the 2014 short documentary Remembering the Artist. ^[11]

Further Research

Smith, Roberta (May 7, 1993). "Robert De Niro, 71, A New York Painter And Actor's Father". The New York Times. New York City. [6]

McDermott, Peter (October 30, 2019). "A Syracuse tale". Irish Echo. "Boston-based genealogist Jim McNiff has traced the baptismal certificate for the superstar's great-great-grandmother to that hamlet .. Ellen Hall, a new name in the De Niro story, for up to this point his great-grandfather Dennis O'Reilly was said to be the son of an American-born woman called Margaret. But Margaret was Edward O'Reilly's second wife, whereas Dennis was born to Edward's first wife Ellen, the immigrant from Dundrum" [7]

Lonergan, Aidan (March 16, 2018). "7 things you never knew about Robert De Niro's surprising Irish roots". Irish Post. "Bobby's father, Robert Sr, was half-Irish on his mother Helen O'Reilly's side .. Bobby's granny Helen O'Reilly was 21 when she married his grandfather Henry .. Helen was completely Irish by DNA – her own grandparents having left Ireland for America during the Famine era .. Edward and Margaret O'Reilly, and John and Mary Burns"[8]

Radaelli, Mariella (May 8, 2019). "Robert De Niro, famed son of Ferrazzano". "actor Robert De Niro's great grandparents, Giovanni Di Niro and Angelina Mercurio, who left in search of their US dream in 1887."

The Art Story: Robert De Niro, Sr. [9]

Guzaldo, Andrew P. "Remembering Robert De Niro Sr!!!: An Artistic Legacy" 1 Oct 2022.

De Niro Jr, Robert; Storr, Robert et al (2019) "Robert De Niro, Sr.: Paintings, Drawings, and Writings: 1942-1993" Rizzolo Electra. Monograph.

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} "United States Social Security Death Index," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VSN9-XQ9 : 7 January 2021), Robert H Deniro, 03 May 1993; citing U.S. Social Security Administration, Death Master File, database (Alexandria, Virginia: National Technical Information Service, ongoing).
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1} "United States Census, 1930," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9RCS-CD2?cc=1810731&wc=QZFQ-KWQ%3A649437801%2C652140901%2C649115701%2C1589282318 : 8 December 2015), New York > Onondaga > Syracuse > ED 53 > image 41 of 84; citing NARA microfilm publication T626 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2002).
3. ↑ "United States Census, 1940," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:K79Y-2GL : 7 January 2021), Robert Deniro in household of Henry Deniro, Syracuse, Onondaga, New York, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 66-56, sheet 1B, line 59, family 22, Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940, NARA digital publication T627. Records of the Bureau of the Census, 1790 - 2007, RG 29. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2012, roll 2854.
4. ↑ "New York State Census, 1925," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KSWP-33X : 8 November 2014), Robert H Deniro, Syracuse Ward 10, A.D. 02, E.D. 03, Onondaga, New York, United States; records extracted by Ancestry and images digitized by FamilySearch; citing p. 17, line 09, New York State Archives, Albany.
5. ↑ ^{5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4} "In the name of the father", Sydney Morning Herald, 16 Sept 2002. Accessed: 11 Mar 2023 [1]
6. ↑ Portwood, Jeremy (August 17, 2016). "Robert De Niro: Me & My Gay Dad". Out. Los Angeles, California. Retrieved 10 Mar 2023 [2]
7. ↑ "United States, GenealogyBank Obituaries, Births, and Marriages 1980-2014," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QKW8-Z9ZV : accessed 11 March 2023), Mr Robert De Niro, Washington DC, United States, 08 May 1993; from "Recent Newspaper Obituaries (1977 - Today)," database, GenealogyBank.com (http://www.genealogybank.com : 2014); citing Washington Post, The, born-digital text.
8. ↑ Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/39487193/robert-henry-de_niro: accessed 11 March 2023), memorial page for Robert Henry De Niro Sr. (3 May 1922–3 May 1993), Find a Grave Memorial ID 39487193, citing Kensico Cemetery, Valhalla, Westchester County, New York, USA; Maintained by Jerry Gowins Jr. (contributor 46549826).
9. ↑ The Art Story: Robert De Niro, Sr. Accessed 11 Mar 2023 [3]
10. ↑ "Robert De Niro Honors Father With Prize Awarded To American Painters". Huffington Post. New York City. November 8, 2010. Retrieved 11 Mar 2023 [4]
11. ↑ Fuchs, Cynthia (June 9, 2014). "'Remembering the Artist, Robert De Niro Sr.': The Actor on His Father". PopMatters. Retrieved 11 Mar 2023.[5]