Stowe Reporter
"Lucioni Reveals Reverence for Nature"

STOWE --- Etchings, oil paintings and watercolors of Vermont landscapes, barns, trees and still lifes created throughout a 60-year career reflect Luigi Lucioni's reverence for his adopted homeland.

"Because of his love of 'plein aire' painting he found the barns, silos and birches in Vermont his favorite subjects," said Clarke Gallery owner Grier Clarke, who hosts an exhibition of Lucioni's works from Nov. 29 to Dec. 21.

"We can appreciate and cherish the subject matter of an accomplished artist, and Lucioni's view of what Vermont has been, what we can lose and what can be kept," he added.

Born in Malante, Italy, Lucioni (1900-1988) arrived in the United States at age 11. He studied art in New York at Cooper Union and the National Academy, and was awarded a prestigious Tiffany Foundation fellowship in 1924 when he was 23 years old. He continued to spend at least a part of every year for the next 10 years at the Foundation's Oyster Bay retreat where John Sloan, Kenneth Hayes Miller, Gifford Beal, Childe Hassam and others would also come out occasionally to teach.

During the Depression, a time when many young artists in New York City were having a difficult time selling their paintings, Lucioni found national recognition for his work.

He became a member of the Associated American Artists, and exhibited at the Ferergil Galleries. In 1932, the Metropolitan Museum purchased one of his paintings which was the first American painting acquired for their permanent collection.

Lucioni began painting in Vermont in 1930 when he was commissioned to paint a landscape for the newly wed Electra Webb Bostwick of Shelburne. Vermont reminded him of northern Italy, and he returned annually to paint in Shelburne as a guest of the Webb family.

In 1939, Lucioni purchased a farm home in Manchester where he annually lived from may to October.

He found an endless source of inspiration in the Vermont landscape with the tree patterns, weather-worn barns, mountainscapes and skyscapes. He so often painted and etched birch trees that they became a trademark for him. He said that he did not have any statement to make with his art, and the viewer should not try to find any hidden meaning. He does what he does for the shear joy of it. However, his works reval something of the reverence Lucioni feels for the natural world.

Most of his etchings were done from previous paintings or watercolors, and he insisted, "a lot of success of an etching is due to the printing."