Robert De Niro Sr.

{{Infobox person

| name = Bob De Niro

| image = Robert De Niro, Sr.jpg

| birth_name = Robert Henry De Niro

| birth_date = {{birth date|1922|5|3}}

| birth_place = Syracuse, New York, U.S.

| death_date = {{death date and age|1993|5|3|1922|1|17}}

| death_place = New York City, U.S.

| resting_place = Kensico Cemetery

| occupation = Painter

| movement = Abstract expressionism

| years_active = 1932–1993

| spouse = {{marriage|Virginia Admiral|1942|1945|reason=div}}

| partner = Robert Duncan (1944–1950)

| children = Robert De Niro

| relatives = Drena De Niro (adoptive granddaughter)
Raphael De Niro (grandson)

}}

Robert Henry De Niro (May 3, 1922 – May 3, 1993), better known as Robert or Bob De Niro Sr.,According to the Social Security Death Index. Searchable at http://www.familytreelegends.com/records/ssdi{{cite book|first=Mary Emma|last=Harris|title=The arts at Black Mountain College|publisher=MIT Press|location=Cambridge, Massachusetts|date=2002|pages=272|isbn=0-262-58212-0}} was an American artist and the father of actor Robert De Niro.{{cite news |first = Roberta | last = Smith| url = https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE5DB1F3BF934A35756C0A965958260 | title = Robert De Niro, 71, A New York Painter And Actor's Father | newspaper = The New York Times |location=New York City|date = May 7, 1993| access-date=August 11, 2018 }}

Life and early career

Bob De Niro was born in Syracuse, New York, to an Irish-American mother, Helen M. (née O'Reilly; 1899–1999). Helen's mother was Mary E. Burns (born to John and Mary Burns) and her father was Dennis Francis O'Reilly, born to Dundrum's Ellen Hall, the second wife of Edward O'Reilly.{{cite news |first=Peter |last=McDermott |url=https://www.irishecho.com/2019/10/a-syracuse-tale-robert-de-niro-jim-mcniff/ |work=Irish Echo |title=A Syracuse tale |date=October 30, 2019 |quote=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}} There was previous confusion about Dennis' maternity, his mother previously thought to be Edward's second wife Margaret.{{cite news |work=Irish Post |url=https://www.irishpost.com/entertainment/7-things-never-knew-robert-de-niros-surprising-irish-roots-151703 |first=Aidan |last=Lonergan |title=7 things you never knew about Robert De Niro's surprising Irish roots |date=March 16, 2018 |quote=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}}

De Niro's Italian-American father, Henry Martin De Niro (1897–1976), was born to parents who emigrated from Ferrazzano in 1887, Angelina Mercurio and Giovanni Di Niro.{{cite news |title=Robert De Niro, famed son of Ferrazzano |first=Mariella |last=Radaelli |date=May 8, 2019 |quote=actor Robert De Niro's great grandparents, Giovanni Di Niro and Angelina Mercurio, who left in search of their US dream in 1887.}}

Bob was the eldest of three children; he and siblings John and Joan were raised in Syracuse. De Niro studied at Black Mountain College under Josef Albers from 1939 to 1940. While Albers' highly analytical approach to painting did not appeal to De Niro's more instinctive style, the experience and international perspective of the Bauhaus master nonetheless left a lasting impression. De Niro studied with Hans Hofmann at his Provincetown, Massachusetts, summer school. Hofmann's teaching on Abstract Expressionism and Cubist formalism had a strong influence on De Niro's development as a mature artist.

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 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 Robert Anthony De Niro was born in August 1943 after De Niro Sr. came out as gay.{{cite magazine|first=Jeremy|last=Portwood|url=https://www.out.com/movies/2016/8/17/robert-de-niro-me-my-gay-dad|title=Robert De Niro: Me & My Gay Dad|magazine=Out|location=Los Angeles, California|date=August 17, 2016|access-date=August 11, 2018}} In 1944, De Niro had a relationship with the poet Robert Duncan.{{cite book|first=Deirdre|last=Bair|author-link=Deirdre Bair|title=Anais Nin: A Biography|publisher=G. P. Putnam|location=New York City|date=1995|isbn=978-0140255256}}

After studying with Hans Hofmann in New York and Provincetown and Josef Albers at Black Mountain College, North Carolina in the late 1930s and early 1940s, 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 Guggenheim's gallery in April and May of the following year. At that point, he was primarily working in an abstract manner, often with figural references. Much of his work from this period was lost in a studio fire in 1949.File:De Niro Flowers in a Blue Vase.jpg

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.

From 1961 to 1964, De Niro traveled 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 and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC. In 2015, a number of De Niro paintings were sold at Christie's auction house{{Cite web|url=https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-robert-de-niro-sr-american-1922-1993-5910535/|title = Robert de Niro, Sr. (American, 1922-1993)}} by the order of the trustees of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden to benefit its acquisition program. In 1968, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Later career

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.

His work is included in several 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.

Death and legacy

Image:1 De Niro 800.jpg]]

De Niro Sr. died of cancer on the morning of May 3, 1993 (his 71st birthday), at his Manhattan home. He is interred at Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York.Wilson, Scott. Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons, 3d ed.: 2 (Kindle Locations 11884-11885). McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. Kindle Edition.

The 1993 film A Bronx Tale was dedicated to De Niro after his death; it was the directorial debut of his son, Robert Anthony De Niro.{{cite news |first = John | last = Baxter| title = In the name of the father | url = http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/09/25/1032734222540.html | newspaper = Sydney Morning Herald | publisher=Fairfax Media|location=Melbourne, Australia|date = September 26, 2002|access-date=August 11, 2018 }}

In 2010, Robert Anthony De Niro announced the creation of the Robert De Niro Sr. Prize, an annual $25,000 prize administered by the Tribeca Film Institute and funded by Robert Anthony De Niro that "focuses on a mid-career American artist devoted to the pursuit of excellence and innovation in painting."{{cite web|title=Catherine Murphy awarded 2013 Robert De Niro Sr. Prize|url=http://www.robertdenirosr.com/Blog/Entries/2014/1/24_Catherine_Murphy_awarded_2013_Robert_De_Niro%2C_Sr._Prize.html|website=The Estate of Robert De Niro Sr.|access-date=June 29, 2014}}{{cite web|title=Robert De Niro Honors Father With Prize Awarded To American Painters|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/18/robert-de-niro-honors-fat_n_785727.html|website=Huffington Post|location=New York City|date=November 8, 2010|access-date=June 29, 2014}} Past winners include Stanley Whitney,{{cite web|title=Robert De Niro Sr. Prize awarded to Stanley Whitney|url=http://www.robertdenirosr.com/Blog/Entries/2011/11/17_Robert_De_Niro%2C_Sr._Prize_awarded_to_Stanley_Whitney.html|website=The Estate of Robert De Niro Sr.|access-date=June 29, 2014}} Joyce Pensato,{{cite web|title=Joyce Pensato awarded 2012 Robert De Niro Sr. Prize|url=http://www.robertdenirosr.com/Blog/Entries/2012/12/18_Joyce_Pensato_awarded_2012_Robert_De_Niro%2C_Sr._Prize.html|website=The Estate of Robert De Niro, Sr.|access-date=June 29, 2014}} Catherine Murphy{{cite web|title=Catherine Murphy awarded 2013 Robert De Niro Sr. Prize|url=http://www.robertdenirosr.com/Blog/Entries/2014/1/24_Catherine_Murphy_awarded_2013_Robert_De_Niro%2C_Sr._Prize.html|website=The Estate of Robert De Niro Sr.|access-date=June 29, 2014}} and Laura Owens.{{cite web|title=Laura Owens Wins 2015 Robert De Niro Sr. Prize|url=http://artforum.com/news/id=57186|website=Artforum|access-date=January 6, 2016}}

De Niro Sr. is the subject of the 2014 short documentary Remembering the Artist. According to Robert Anthony De Niro, "The thought of what he's done, all his work, I can't not but make sure that it's held up and remembered... So I just want to see him get his due. That's my responsibility and he used to always say that artists are always recognized after they're long gone."{{cite web|first1=Cynthia|last1=Fuchs|title='Remembering the Artist, Robert De Niro Sr.': The Actor on His Father|url=http://www.popmatters.com/review/182657-remembering-the-artist-robert-de-niro-sr/|website=PopMatters|date=June 9, 2014|access-date=June 29, 2014}}

References

External links

[http://www.dcmooregallery.com/artists/robert-de-niro-sr Robert De Niro Sr. artist page at DC Moore Gallery]
[http://www.robertdenirosr.com Estate of Robert De Niro Sr.]
[http://images.dcmooregallery.com/www_dcmooregallery_com/De_Niro_works_on_a_series_of_pictures.pdf ArtNews 1958: De Niro works on a series of pictures]
[http://www.blackmountaincollege.org Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center]
{{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050322193448/http://www.artsiteguide.com/deniro/ |date=March 22, 2005 |title=ArtSiteGuide Biography }}

Category:1922 births

Category:1993 deaths

Category:20th-century American LGBTQ people

Category:20th-century American male artists

Category:20th-century American painters

Category:Abstract expressionist artists

Category:American Figurative Expressionism

Category:American gay artists

Category:American LGBTQ painters

Category:American male painters

Category:American people of Irish descent

Category:American people of Italian descent