Robert De Niro Sr.
(American, 1922-1993)
No Works/Images
Biography
Robert De Niro Sr. was born in Syracuse, New York to an Italian-American father and an Irish-American mother. De Niro studied at the renowned Black Mountain College under Josef Albers from 1939 to 1940. De Niro studied with Hans Hofmann at his Provincetown, Massachusetts summer school. Hofmann's teaching, focused on Abstract Expressionism and Cubist formalism, had a strong influence on De Niro's development as a mature artist. In 1944, De Niro had a relationship with the poet Robert Duncan.
At Hofmann's summer school, he met fellow student Virginia Admiral, whom he married in 1942. The couple moved into a large, airy loft in New York's Greenwich Village, where they both were able to paint. They surrounded themselves with an illustrious circle of friends, including writers Anaïs Nin and Henry Miller, playwright Tennessee Williams, and the actress and famous Berlin dancer Valeska Gert. Admiral and De Niro separated shortly after their son, famous actor Robert De Niro Jr. was born in August 1943.
After studying with Hans Hofmann and at Black Mountain College, De Niro worked for five years at Hilla Rebay’s legendary Museum of Non-Objective Art. In 1945, he was included in a group show at Peggy Guggenheim’s Art of This Century in New York, which was a leading gallery for the art of both established European modernists and members of the emerging Abstract Expressionist group like Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell, and Clyfford Still. De Niro had his first solo exhibition at Peggy Guggenheim's gallery in April and May of the following year. Much of De Niro’s abstract work from this period was lost in a studio fire in 1949.
After studying with Hans Hofmann and at Black Mountain College, De Niro worked for five years at Hilla Rebay’s legendary Museum of Non-Objective Art. In 1945, he was included in a group show at Peggy Guggenheim’s Art of This Century in New York, which was a leading gallery for the art of both established European modernists and members of the emerging Abstract Expressionist group like Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell, and Clyfford Still. De Niro had his first solo exhibition at Peggy Guggenheim's gallery in April and May of the following year. Much of De Niro’s abstract work from this period was lost in a studio fire in 1949.
De Niro had a series of solo exhibitions in the 1950s at the Charles Egan Gallery in New York, which exhibited the work of Willem de Kooning and other early abstract expressionist artists. 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.
De Niro traveled in the 1960s to France to paint in Paris and in the surrounding countryside. Collector Joseph Hirshhorn purchased a number of the artist's paintings and works on paper during this period through De Niro's gallerist, Virginia Zabriskie, which are now in the permanent collection of the Hirshhorn Museum. In 1968, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. De Niro’s works are in the collections of the Metropolitan, Brooklyn Museum, Hirshorn Museum, Musee and Smithsonian.
De Niro traveled in the 1960s to France to paint in Paris and in the surrounding countryside. Collector Joseph Hirshhorn purchased a number of the artist's paintings and works on paper during this period through De Niro's gallerist, Virginia Zabriskie, which are now in the permanent collection of the Hirshhorn Museum. In 1968, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. De Niro’s works are in the collections of the Metropolitan, Brooklyn Museum, Hirshorn Museum, Musee and Smithsonian.