Skip to main content

Video Loading

Want more images or videos?

Request additional images or videos from the seller

1 of 18

Angelo Di Benedetto
White on White #4, Large Shaped Canvas Acrylic Painting, 1965 Mid Century Modern
1965

Price:$16,950

$18,500List Price

About the Item

"White on White #4" is an acrylic on shaped canvas painting by Angelo Di Benedetto (1913-1992) from December 31, 1965. Signed, titled, and dated by the artist on verso. Presented in a vintage artist made frame, outer dimensions measure 59 ⅛ x 59 ⅛ x 1 ¼ inches. Image size is 58 x 58 inches. Provenance: Denver Art Museum - December, 1968 Gift of Mrs. John Bunker, Mrs. Samuel Gary, and Mrs. Caleb Seinberg About the artist: The son of Italian immigrants from the Salerno province in southern Italy, as a teenager Di Benedetto worked as a truck driver in the mornings and a bartender in the afternoons to study at the Cooper Union Art School in New York City (1930-34) from which he graduated with a certificate in freehand drawing. He won a scholarship to the Boston Museum Art School where he studied for three years, beginning in 1934, with Russian émigré painter, Alexandre Jacovleff, a member of Mir Isskustva (World of Art) in St. Petersburg before the Russian Revolution. In 1936 he painted a religious mural for St. Michael’s Grove in Paterson, New Jersey. The following year, he entered his first juried exhibition at the Montclair Museum in New Jersey, winning first prize and first honorable mention. In December 1938, the Royal Netherlands Steamship Line sent him on a two-month ethnological study trip to Haiti, his first exposure to a different environment outside the United States. During what turned out to be an extended six-month stay, he studied and painted the life and religious customs of the island, resulting in a series of colorful, stylized paintings inspired by his immersion in the local culture. He also did scenes of Port-au-Prince and executed commissions received from prominent people in Haiti, including government officials. In 1940, his Haitian paintings were exhibited at the Montross Gallery in New York (his first solo show) and also reproduced in the January 1940 issue of Life Magazine. One of his Haitian paintings, Morning in Port-au-Prince, was owned by an American author, politician and U.S. ambassador, Clare Boothe Luce, while another image, Haiti Post Office, was acquired for the Encyclopedia Britannica Collection and later donated to Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. Before World War II, Di Benedetto traveled extensively around the United States in his car and trailer doing regional paintings. In 1941, he did what is considered the first authentic version of George Washington Crossing the Delaware, a contrast to the well-known painting on the same subject (1851) by German-born painter, Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze. During the war, Di Benedetto volunteered for a secret mission to Africa in 1941 before the Allied invasion, serving as director of camouflage, foreman of native laborers, and an interpreter while based in Eritrea. The following year he received a direct commission as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Air Corps in the First Photo Mapping Squadron, leading groups as a guide and interpreter and doing ground control. During his free time in Africa, he sketched and painted the local population and his fellow servicemen. Following Africa, he served as an orientation officer and aerial photographic officer for the 311th Photo Wing at Bolling Field, in the District of Columbia where he did a series of illustrated articles describing the natives in the different countries where the men of his organization were stationed during the war. In 1945 he was assigned to a mapping unit at Buckley Air Field in Denver where he served until his discharge in 1946. Like many other servicemen stationed at the time in Colorado, Di Benedetto chose to remain in Colorado, impressed by the state’s physical grandeur and healthful climate. After the war, he lived briefly for about a year in Rangely, a small town in northwest Colorado where he traveled and sketched. But finding it a little too remote, he settled in the old mining town of Central City in 1947, his home base for the rest of his life. He spent his first six years there transforming the old Sauder-McShane Mercantile warehouse into a giant art studio. His initial acquaintance with the town’s mining town history in 1947 resulted in a drawing, Death of a Miner, showing a male figure buried under a pile of collapsed rock in a mining tunnel. In 1949 Di Benedetto and his wife, ceramist Lee Porzio, opened the Benpro Art School in his studio where he conducted summer art classes. The following year he teamed up with a Denver-based artist, Frank Vavra, to open the Denver Art Center at 924 Broadway. He and Vavra were founding members of the 15 Colorado Artists who seceded in 1948 from the Denver Artists Guild because they were dissatisfied with the older organization’s underlying conservatism and the disdain of some of its members for modern art. Welcoming anyone wanting to learn how to draw or paint, the Denver Art Center in downtown Denver only lasted about a year. Undeterred by its lack of success, Di Benedetto continued throughout his career to give workshops, classes, and lectures on art-related topics in Denver and elsewhere. Examples of topics ranged from subjects such as “African Art,” Chappell House, Denver (1945) and “University or Artistic Thought” sponsored by the Art for World Friendship Committee (1954). He also taught locally at the Jewish Community Center, Steele Community Center, International House, Southern Colorado State College-Pueblo, and lectured at the University of Denver. Beginning in 1969 he sponsored over one hundred youths at his studio in Central City to spend a summer learning about art. He also conducted classes for serious working artists. His efforts earned him an honorary doctorate from the University of Colorado in 1977. He likewise promoted contemporary Colorado artists’ work in the 1950s, heading a committee that presented one-person exhibitions in a small gallery at the Vogue Art Cinema on South Pearl Street in Denver. His interest in promoting the arts led to his participation in numerous organizations. In the 1960s he became concerned with environmental and urban art and was the president of Art for the Cities, a Denver-based nonprofit organization. He also was the chairman of and a participant in the first annual environmental art exhibit held at Denver’s American Medical Center. In 1968 Colorado Governor John Love appointed him to the Colorado Council on the Arts and Humanities in which he remained active until 1975. He served for two consecutive years as program coordinator for the Governor’s Conference on the Arts and Humanities. At the 1969 conference, Governor Love presented him an award for his contribution to the art and artists of Colorado. At the same time, he actively participated in the civic life of Central City. The town’s Police Magistrate (1955-56), he twice campaigned for mayor, first in 1966 and again in 1973, and ran for commissioner in 1979. He socialized with artists Ben Shahn, Herbert Bayer and Mark Rothko, as well as theatrical stars appearing at the Central City Opera House, including Helen Hayes, Mae West, and Gypsy Rose Lee. He invited them to carve their autographs on his kitchen table. Di Benedetto worked with equal facility in a variety of media: acrylic, oil paint, watercolor, charcoal, Conte crayon, graphic arts and metal (copper, iron). Up until the early 1950s, his output was dominated by representational figure work and expressionist Colorado landscapes that were not always immune from controversy. When Life Magazine included a reproduction of his Regionalist painting, Lovers in the Cornfield (1941) in its article, “Ten Years of American Art: Life Reviews the Record of a Lively, Important Decade” (November 26, 1946, issue), three counties in Massachusetts banned the publication. Just as immediately, the painting was exhibited in Denver. He said that he liked the West because the people, despite their lack of exposure to art, were individualistic and almost “anarchistic.” In the early 1950s he did woodcuts in a modernist style, including Remembrance, showing his two young daughters. Influenced by Abstract Expressionism at that time, he began considering the elimination of the image from his work. By the end of the decade, he had decided that “the circle – pure and simple was one of the most familiar symbols of mankind and that it metaphored into everything.” At the same time, he noted that “99% of the abstract painters shied away from using…[the circle]. When they didn’t, they slaughtered it, murdered it and buried it. So it became my motif.” For more than three decades he explored the circle in paint, sculpture and shaped canvas. Two examples of the last-named medium are his Red CQ and Black C-1, both from 1969. Because abstraction touched upon his deep feelings and spirituality, he felt he could make visible that part of life which “we feel but almost never see.” His fascination with the circle also relates to his belief that to affect the dialogue existing between object and maker, the artist must “create archetypal shapes [that have universal appeal], not symbols…to reflect simply the intrinsic beauty of the shape itself.” A strong advocate for public art, Di Benedetto headed Art for the Cities, Inc., which sponsored nine sculptures for Burns Park as part of the Denver Sculpture Symposium held in the Mile High City in 1968. The catalysts for the idea of the sculptures were Beverly and Bernie Rosen, who had been instrumental in the creation of the contemporary department at the Denver Art Museum. Along with Di Benedetto, the other participating sculptors were Dean Fleming, Peter Forakis, Roger Kotoske, Tony Magar, Robert Mangold, Robert Morris, Richard Van Buren and Bill Verhelst. The park project eventually served as a prototype for twenty-two states, bringing the sculpture to urban spaces. The sculptures reflected Di Benedetto’s concept of “burden-less environmental art” with no hidden meaning for the public to decipher. His goal in public art was to “create a work which, when integrated with the site, will create a tranquil oasis, a counterbalance to the modern chaotic world we experience daily.” During the 1960s and 1970s, he received other major sculpture commissions: an 80-foot-long copper wall, Jewish Community Center, Denver (1962); sculpture garden, General Rose Hospital, Denver (1964); Fountain, First National Bank of Dallas (1966); Colorado Fuel & Iron Company, Pueblo, Colorado (1969); neighborhood park sculpture, Yonkers, New York (1971); High School Park, Northglenn, Colorado (1974); ice skating rink sculpture, Pueblo (1976). Fate was not as kind to his mural which the Colorado Supreme Court justices commissioned him to paint in 1976 for the Colorado Judicial Building from a field of twenty-two candidates. With his former student, Phyllis Montrose as his principal assistant along with three others, he spent a year and a half executing the mural. Entitled Justice Through the Ages (aka Lawgivers), it depicted sixty individuals from ancient Babylon’s King Hammurabi to former U.S. Chief Justice Earl Warren. Measuring 20 feet by 180 feet, it was called at its dedication “the largest figurative mural in America.” Although for more than a generation it sprawled across the ceiling of the open-aired first floor of the Colorado Judicial Building, it was not saved when the building was demolished in 2010 to make way for the block-long Ralph L. Carr Justice Complex. Reflecting on his distinguished career in his twilight years, he described art “’as a type of sanity,’ an activity which allows an individual to experiment through different styles and media and to explore the intellectual and psychological aspects of his or her life.” Each time he entered his studio he was pushed to explore further, to “test his sanity.” This freedom proved crucial in the creation of his multi-faceted oeuvre. © Stan Cuba for David Cook Galleries

Creator:
Angelo Di Benedetto (1913 - 1992, American)
Creation Year:
1965
Dimensions:
Height: 59.25 in (150.5 cm)Width: 59.25 in (150.5 cm)Depth: 1.25 in (3.18 cm)
Medium:
Canvas,Acrylic
Movement & Style:
Abstract
Period:
1960-1969
Condition:
Painting is clean and in very good condition - please contact us for a detailed condition report.
Gallery Location:
Denver, CO
Reference Number:
Seller: 262171stDibs: LU2739872242

Shop All Angelo Di Benedetto

Angelo Di Benedetto

Angelo Di Benedetto Born New Jersey 1913 Died Central City, CO 1992 The son of Italian immigrants from the Salerno province in southern Italy, as a teenager Di Benedetto worked to study at the Cooper Union Art School in New York City (1930-34) from which he graduated with a certificate in freehand drawing. He won a scholarship to the Boston Museum Art School where he studied for three years, beginning in 1934. In 1937, he entered his first juried exhibition at the Montclair Museum in New Jersey, winning first prize and first honorable mention. In December 1938, the Royal Netherlands Steamship Line sent him on a two-month ethnological study trip to Haiti, his first exposure to a different environment outside the United States. In 1940, his Haitian paintings were exhibited at the Montross Gallery in New York – his first solo show. Before World War II, Di Benedetto traveled extensively around the United States doing regional paintings. During the war in 1941, Di Benedetto volunteered for a secret mission based in Eritrea, Africa before the Allied invasion. Following Africa, he served as an orientation officer and aerial photographic officer in the District of Columbia. In 1945 he was assigned to a mapping unit at Buckley Airfield in Denver where he served until his discharge in 1946. Like many other servicemen stationed at the time in Colorado, Di Benedetto chose to remain in Colorado, impressed by the state’s physical grandeur and healthful climate. He settled in the old mining town of Central City in 1947. In 1949 Di Benedetto and his wife, ceramist Lee Porzio, opened the Benpro Art School in his studio where he conducted summer art classes. In 1950, Di Benedetto teamed up with Frank Vavra to open the Denver Art Center. He and Vavra were founding members of the 15 Colorado Artists. Denver Art Center in downtown Denver only lasted about a year. Undeterred by its lack of success, Di Benedetto continued to give workshops, classes, and lectures in Denver and elsewhere. His efforts earned him an honorary doctorate from the University of Colorado in 1977. For more than three decades he explored the circle in paint, sculpture, and shaped canvas. Because abstraction touched upon his deep feelings and spirituality, he felt he could make visible that part of life which “we feel but almost never see.” Di Benedetto died in Central City, Colorado in 1992.

You May Also Like

White on White, Extra Large, Minimalist, Abstract Painting on Canvas

Udo NogerWhite on White, Extra Large, Minimalist, Abstract Painting on Canvas, 2019

$120,000

H 61 in W 192 in

White on White, Extra Large, Minimalist, Abstract Painting on Canvas

By Udo Noger

Located in NEW YORK, NY

But there is Day and Night 1, 2019 Mixed media on canvas 61 x 192 inches 155 x 488 cm Udo Nöger creates luminous monochrome paintings that capture light, movement and energy express...

Category

2010s Contemporary Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Mixed Media

White on White, Large, Minimalist, Abstract Painting on Canvas

Udo NogerWhite on White, Large, Minimalist, Abstract Painting on Canvas, 2021

$72,000

H 88 in W 72 in

White on White, Large, Minimalist, Abstract Painting on Canvas

By Udo Noger

Located in NEW YORK, NY

Like the Ocean Like the Sea, 2021 Mixed media on canvas 88 x 72 inches 224 x 183 cm Udo Nöger creates luminous monochrome paintings that capture light, movement and energy expressed...

Category

2010s Contemporary Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Mixed Media

Bianco, Original Shaped Painting on Canvas, Abstract, Hand Signed, 1983

Agostino BonalumiBianco, Original Shaped Painting on Canvas, Abstract, Hand Signed, 1983, 1983

$71,600

H 23.5 in W 23.5 in D 1 in

Bianco, Original Shaped Painting on Canvas, Abstract, Hand Signed, 1983

By Agostino Bonalumi

Located in Aventura, FL

Original shaped canvas and vinyl tempera. Hand-signed and dated on verso by the artist. Canvas is stretched. Artwork in excellent condition. All reasonable offers will be considered.

Category

1980s Abstract Mixed Media

Materials

Canvas, Vinyl, Tempera

White on White, Small, Minimalist, Abstract Painting on Canvas

Udo NogerWhite on White, Small, Minimalist, Abstract Painting on Canvas, 2022

$20,000

H 33 in W 36 in

White on White, Small, Minimalist, Abstract Painting on Canvas

By Udo Noger

Located in NEW YORK, NY

Drive 4, 2022 Mixed media on canvas 33 x 36 inches 83.8 x 91.4 cm Udo Nöger creates luminous monochrome paintings that capture light, movement and energy expressed in highly minimal...

Category

2010s Contemporary Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Mixed Media

White on White, Small, Minimalist, Abstract Painting on Canvas

Udo NogerWhite on White, Small, Minimalist, Abstract Painting on Canvas, 2021

$17,000

H 24 in W 27 in

White on White, Small, Minimalist, Abstract Painting on Canvas

By Udo Noger

Located in NEW YORK, NY

Innere Zeit 29, 2021 Mixed media on canvas 24 x 27 inches 60.96 x 68.58 cm Udo Nöger creates luminous monochrome paintings that capture light, movement and energy expressed in highl...

Category

2010s Contemporary Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Mixed Media

White on White, Small, Minimalist, Abstract Painting on Canvas

Udo NogerWhite on White, Small, Minimalist, Abstract Painting on Canvas, 2022

$20,000

H 36 in W 33 in

White on White, Small, Minimalist, Abstract Painting on Canvas

By Udo Noger

Located in NEW YORK, NY

Drive 6, 2022 Mixed media on canvas 36 x 33 inches 91.4 x 83.8 cm Udo Nöger creates luminous monochrome paintings that capture light, movement and energy expressed in highly minimal...

Category

2010s Contemporary Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Mixed Media

White Painting (Large Square) Oil on Canvas by Richard Allen

Richard AllenWhite Painting (Large Square) Oil on Canvas by Richard Allen, 20th Century

Price Upon Request

H 41.375 in W 41.375 in

White Painting (Large Square) Oil on Canvas by Richard Allen

By Richard Allen

Located in Kingsclere, GB

White Painting (Large Square) Oil on Canvas by Richard Allen Additional information: Medium: Oil on canvas 105 x 105 cm 41 3/8 x 41 3/8 in Richard Allen was an Abstract artist of t...

Category

20th Century Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas

Body Records #2 White - contemporary, geometric abstract, acrylic on canvas

Yvonne LammerichBody Records #2 White - contemporary, geometric abstract, acrylic on canvas, 2008

$5,500

H 36 in W 36 in

Body Records #2 White - contemporary, geometric abstract, acrylic on canvas

By Yvonne Lammerich

Located in Bloomfield, ON

This dynamic contemporary circular painting in bright white is by Yvonne Lammerich. The Canadian artist has been exhibiting her uniquely bold work bot...

Category

2010s Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

7.79 (white)

Mala Breuer7.79 (white), 1979

$14,500

H 60 in W 60 in D 1.25 in

7.79 (white)

By Mala Breuer

Located in Phoenix, AZ

oil and wax on canvas Mala Breuer grew up attending classes in painting and drawing from a young age at the California College of Arts and Crafts. After high school she attended ...

Category

1970s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Wax, Oil

ENMXI (White Painting), Oil on Canvas by Richard Allen, 1995 circa

Richard AllenENMXI (White Painting), Oil on Canvas by Richard Allen, 1995 circa, 1995 circa

Price Upon Request

H 24 in W 24 in

ENMXI (White Painting), Oil on Canvas by Richard Allen, 1995 circa

By Richard Allen

Located in Kingsclere, GB

ENMXI (White Painting), Oil on Canvas by Richard Allen, 1995 circa Additional information: Medium: Oil on canvas 61 x 61 cm 24 x 24 in With Estate stamp on the overlap Richard Allen was an Abstract artist of the 20th century who worked across painting, graphic and technological media. Allen was born in Worcester in 1933. Influenced by his father, he attended Shropshire Institute of Agriculture where he studied for a National Diploma. From there he became aware of what he considered his “irrational” yet unshakeable interest in art, since the College shared buildings with Worcester School of Art. Upon the advice of his window-cleaner Bob, Allen decided to apply to the School. Whilst in Worcester he attended Geoffrey Whiting...

Category

20th Century Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas

More From This Seller

Rare 1950s Mid-Century Abstract Shaped Mobile Painting by Angelo Di Benedetto

Angelo Di BenedettoRare 1950s Mid-Century Abstract Shaped Mobile Painting by Angelo Di Benedetto, circa 1955

Rare 1950s Mid-Century Abstract Shaped Mobile Painting by Angelo Di Benedetto

By Angelo Di Benedetto

Located in Denver, CO

This rare and visually arresting mid-century modern abstract painting was created circa 1950 by celebrated Denver modernist Angelo Di Benedetto (1913–1992). Executed in acrylic on a ...

Category

Mid-20th Century Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

Henriette Yetti Stolz 1956 Abstract Oil Painting Mid-Century Modern Art

Henriette "Yetti" StolzHenriette Yetti Stolz 1956 Abstract Oil Painting Mid-Century Modern Art, 1956

Henriette Yetti Stolz 1956 Abstract Oil Painting Mid-Century Modern Art

Located in Denver, CO

A striking 1956 abstract oil on canvas painting by Serbian-American artist Henriette “Yetti” Stolz, exemplifying the bold visual language of mid-century modernism. Executed in oil on...

Category

1950s Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Oil

Henriette "Yetti" Stolz Abstract Oil Painting Colorado Modern Framed

Henriette StolzHenriette "Yetti" Stolz Abstract Oil Painting Colorado Modern Framed

Henriette "Yetti" Stolz Abstract Oil Painting Colorado Modern Framed

Located in Denver, CO

A striking original abstract oil painting by Colorado artist Henriette “Yetti” Stolz, known for her bold use of color and expressive modernist compositions. This dynamic work feature...

Category

Mid-20th Century Abstract Geometric Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Beatrice Mandelman Mid-Century Modern Abstract Acrylic, Taos Modernist Art

Beatrice MandelmanBeatrice Mandelman Mid-Century Modern Abstract Acrylic, Taos Modernist Art, Circa 1970

Beatrice Mandelman Mid-Century Modern Abstract Acrylic, Taos Modernist Art

By Beatrice Mandelman

Located in Denver, CO

This original mid-century modern abstract painting by acclaimed Taos artist Beatrice Mandelman (1912–1998) bursts with vibrant color and dynamic energy. Executed in acrylic on paper,...

Category

Mid-20th Century Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Acrylic

Henriette "Yetti" Stolz Mid-Century Abstract Oil Painting Colorado Modernist

Henriette "Yetti" StolzHenriette "Yetti" Stolz Mid-Century Abstract Oil Painting Colorado Modernist

Henriette "Yetti" Stolz Mid-Century Abstract Oil Painting Colorado Modernist

Located in Denver, CO

Henriette "Yetti" Stolz (Serbian-American, b. 1935) Untitled, Circa 1950s Oil on canvas, Signed lower right Image: 31 x 24 inches Framed: 32 x 25 x 1.5 inches A powerful example of ...

Category

20th Century Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Beatrice Mandelman "Yellow Sun" Geometric Abstract Acrylic Painting, c. 1975

Beatrice MandelmanBeatrice Mandelman "Yellow Sun" Geometric Abstract Acrylic Painting, c. 1975, circa 1975

Beatrice Mandelman "Yellow Sun" Geometric Abstract Acrylic Painting, c. 1975

By Beatrice Mandelman

Located in Denver, CO

Beatrice Mandelman (American, 1912–1998) Yellow Sun, circa 1975 Acrylic on canvas Signed lower right 32 x 24 inches (image) 33.5 x 25.5 x 2 inches (framed) A striking example of Bea...

Category

1970s Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Acrylic

More Ways To Browse

Vintage Mae West

Washington Crossing The Delaware

Acrylic On Canvas 1969

Jewish Sculpture

Ancient Babylon

Vintage Eritrea

Male Nude Print

Panoramic Black And White Photography

Vintage Cat Art Prints

Portrait Prints Of American Indians

Vintage Beach Photographs

View All Popular Paintings Searches