Green Mountain Village

A gray sky overlooks the main street of a small mountain town, rendered by Prestipino with flat shapes and minimal shading. The unrealistic proportions and perspective in the painting give the image a visual appearance that evokes American folk art, which employs similar formal techniques. In the village, several old men and a few young women with an infant are gathered. In the middle of the painting is a building with a prominent clock tower topped in goldwork, perhaps the town’s city hall. A tiny figure can be made out working on the side of the tower. Behind the town hall are a few buildings which appear to be mixed use for residential and commercial purposes. On the far left side of the painting, a man sits on a rocking chair on the porch of a house which also sports an oval blue “Ford” sign, the sole source of ‘branding’ in the image.A heavy-set man stands facing away from the viewer in the bottom center of the painting, his large posterior on prominent display. Perhaps the proximity of the substantial buttocks in the composition to the state building presents some sort of sly political commentary on Prestipino’s part?

About the Artist

Gregorio Prestipino was born in 1907 to Sicilian immigrants Antonino Prestopino and Letteria Rando, who raised the boy in Little Italy in New York City. Prestipino’s career in the arts was kickstarted when he received a scholarship to the National Academy of Design in New York. At this renowned institution, the burgeoning painter had the opportunity to study under the guidance of portrait and genre painter  C.W. Hawthorne. Drawing from the works of 16th-century artist Pieter Bruegel as well as contemporary urban scenes he observed in Manhattan and Harlem, Prestipino created social realist paintings with a cubist influence that depicted, in the words of historian Irma B. Jaff, “the human condition with a warmth tempered only by honesty."

A series of paintings depicting scenes from a New York State prison was featured in Life magazine in 1954, a major achievement for Prestipino. The same year, Prestipino served as the director of the MacDowell Colony - America’s first artist-in-residence program, located in Peterborough, New Hampshire. In recognition for his body of work, Prestipino was awarded the Rome Prize in 1972, which allowed him to further his studies with a residency at the American Academy in Rome.

In addition to the serious topics he tackled, Prestipino also produced fanciful paintings and illustrations for children; his 1937 mural work depicting Mother Goose rhymes adorned the Infant Pavillion of the Welfare Island hospital in New York, and he provided whimsical illustrations for the 1968 picture book The Reluctant Dragon.

Gregorio Prestinio passed away in 1984 at the age of 77.

Prestopino, Gregorio, 1907 - 1984

Casey, Meaghan (description and biography)

Helquist, Morgan (photography)

New Deal Museum, Mount Morris NY

Object #FA 403

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Oil painting on canvas

26 x 20 in.