Aurelio Cordaro

Untitled no. 1, 1976
signed upper right A. Cordaro and dated,
acrylic on canvas, 28 x 50 inches

Born in New York, Aurelio Cordaro studied in Italy and also at the National Academy of Design.  He lived most of his life in New York, originally working for the Works Progress Administration.  By 1937, he had his first solo exhibition at Alma Reed’s prestigious Delphic Studios Gallery.  He also participated in group shows during the 1930s and 1940s, at venues such as the Municipal Art Committee Galleries (1936,1937), Contemporary American Art Gallery (1944), Jordan Marsh and Company 19th Annual Exhibition of Paintings (1948), and the Panoras Gallery (1978, 1979).  In 1977, he was included in the highly regarded Parsons School of Design exhibition entitled New York City WPA Art, Then 1934-1943 and…Now 1960-1977.  An early work and a large abstraction from 1977 were both illustrated in the catalogue for that show.  By the 1950s, Cordaro had become seriously interested in Abstract Expressionism, creating large abstract geometric works in primary colors.  Although he was invited to exhibit in his later years, by his own admission, he declined those invitations.