
San Fratello, Outskirts of the Town after Harvest Time, 1930
signed lower right A.D. Crimi,
titled and signed again verso,
oil on canvas
24 x 28 inches
NB. Alfredo de Giorgio Crimi was born in San Fratello, Sicily, in the province of Messina. At the age of ten, he came with his family to Little Italy in New York, going on to study at the National Academy of Design. In 1929, he moved to Rome to study fresco painting with Professore Venturini Paperi; he returned to New York a well trained muralist. He, along with several other artists, was hired by the WPA for a series of murals at New York’s Harlem Hospital. Other major commissions include the Post Office Department Building in Washington, D.C., Rutgers Presbyterian Church in New York, and the Polish Roman Catholic Church in Bayonne, New Jersey. He exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, Art Institute of Chicago, Whitney Museum of American Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Salons of America, Society of Independent Artists, and an exhibition at the Parsons School of Design in 1977, entitled “New York City WPA, Then 1934-1943 and…Now 1960-1977.” His work may be found at the Norfolk (VA) Museum of Arts and Sciences, Butler Institute of American Art, Columbia (SC) Museum, and the Library of Congress.
Crimi returned to his home village in Sicily in 1930, painting views of the landscape after a devastating landslide destroyed most of the town, killing hundreds.