Antonio Petruccelli: Rediscovering a Modernist

Antonio Petruccelli: Rediscovering a Modernist, the new online exhibition from Helicline Fine Art, is extended through September 6, 2023 due to continued interest.

BIOGRAPHY:

Antonio Petruccelli (1907-1994) began his career as a textile designer. He became a freelance illustrator in 1932 after winning several House Beautiful cover illustration contests. 

In addition to 24 Fortune magazine covers, four New Yorker covers, several for House Beautiful, Collier’s, and other magazines he did numerous illustrations for Life magazine from the 1930s – 60s.

‘Tony was Mr. Versatility for Fortune. He could do anything, from charts and diagrams to maps, illustrations, covers, and caricatures,’ said Francis Brennan, the former art director for Fortune.

Over the course of his career, Antonio won several important design awards, designing a U.S. Postage Stamp Commemorating the Steel Industry and designing the Bicentennial Medal for the Franklin Mint for the State of New Jersey.

The exhibition features four dozen published cover illustrations for FORTUNE, THE NEW YORKER, HOUSE BEAUTIFUL and COLLIERS, cover proposals and drawings for VANITY FAIR, LIFE, LAMP and others. The work spans the 1930s through the 60s and will be available for acquisition at HeliclineFineArt.com.

The Fortune magazine cover was his great platform from 1933 to 1945. Petruccelli created 28 memorable covers with characteristic precision, wit and imaginative contributions that made full use of dense color. The images he devised were entirely his own, innovative for the time, and seemed to owe little to the work of his contemporaries. An early training in textile design supplied him with an eye for the possibilities of repeating images and a flair for unusually rhythmic compositions. Many images suggest an intuitive understanding of the dynamics of Italian Futurism combined with an Art Deco sensibility.

Antonio Petruccelli (1907 - 1994)

Vanity Fair

Vanity Fair illustration proposal

18 1/2 x 14 inches

Gouache on board

Signed Lower right

Antonio Petruccelli (1907 - 1994)

Skyscraper Workers Textile design

19 1/4 X 14 1/4 inches

Signed and dated 1929 Lower right

Petruccelli was an artist of modest ego who didn’t promote his work. He provided for his family by creating sensational paintings that were used as magazine covers and interior illustrations that the world saw. He painted for himself, but only rarely.

“Antonio Petruccelli is typical of a certain generation of visually innovative American artists whose reputation suffered from an association with creating images for the public in magazines and books,” said Kirk Petruccelli, the artist’s grandson.

“Helicline Fine Art is proud to reintroduce the world to the inspired work of this great and relatively unknown modern artist. We saw Petruccelli‘s works in a New Jersey gallery more than a decade ago and have been asking the family to allow us to mount a full exhibition honoring Antonio ever since. We are thrilled to bring this first-rate artist back in the public’s consciousness.” said gallery owner Keith Sherman.

Antonio Petruccelli (1907 - 1994)

Play Ball

New Yorker cover proposal, c. 1939

15 x 11 inches

Gouache on board

Estate stamp verso

Antonio Petruccelli (1907 - 1994)

Smoke Stacks

Fortune cover published September 1937

17 1/2 x 13 1/2 inches

Gouache on board

Signed Lower right.