Giuseppe Pino
(American, 1939-2010)

"Costa Smeralda"

oil on canvas
signed "Pino" lower left, titled en verso canvas.
Framed.
40" x 60"

Notes: Pino, born Giuseppe Daeni Dangelico in Bari - the second largest port in Italy, was a prolific artist and illustrator. He studied at the Art Institute of Bari and the Academy of Brera, where he was deeply influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites' romanticized depictions of women in natural settings, and the Macchiaioli landscapes, characterized by loose patches (macchie) of color applied from plein-air studies. Through the confluence of the two, Pino developed a unique style, characterized by sensuous women-in-waiting in Mediterranean beaches/seaside resorts settings rendered in a tetradic palette of earth tones, redolent of the Macciaioli. The painting offered here of the Smeralda Coast in Sardinia, a popular destination off the coast of Italy, is a fine example of Pino's mature style. The arched stucco architecture, captured through thick swatches of pigment rendered in tertiary siena, sage and cerulean blue, is accented by Roman cisterns abloom with flower beds. True to his bravura for the female form, a fashionable tourist, with the same deep blue chemise as the Mediterranean Sea in the distance, is captured in a spontaneous snapshot.

Pino's extraordinary gift for depicting movement and expression in painterly landscapes was seized early on by publishing companies. Between 1960 and 1990, Pino illustrated more than 3,000 book covers, working first for Mondadori and Rizzoli, the two largest publishers in Italy, and after 1978 when he immigrated to New York, Bantam, Simon & Schuster, Penguin USA, Dell, and Harlequin. Under the pen name Fabio, Pino was also the creative mastermind behind many Danielle Steel novel covers. His painting career was equally as illustrious. Shortly after moving to New York, Pino's paintings were discovered by the prominent Borghi Gallery, which held several exhibitions of his work in New York and Boston. Pino retired to Naples, Florida, and continued to paint and work for pleasure as an illustrator up until his death in 2010.