Lawrence Calcagno
(1913-1993)
Lawrence Calcagno was born in San Francisco in 1913. He began drawing at an early age and took up painting at age 19. After serving in WWII, Calcagno began studying painting under the G.I. Bill in San Francisco, Paris, and Florence. Calcagno first exhibited his work in 1952 at the Facchetti Gallery in Paris. He returned to New York after living in Europe for five years, and had his first solo show at the Martha Jackson Gallery. Throughout his career, Calcagno visited several universities as an artist-in-residence, including the University of Alabama, the Albright School of the University of Buffalo, the University of Illinois, and the Honolulu Academy of Arts. In 1965, Calcagno was awarded a Ford Foundation Grant and was named to the visiting Andrew Mellon Chair of Painting at Carnegie-Mellon University. During 1973-1975, the Smithsonian circulated an exhibition of Calcagno’s works on paper and in 1983 a touring retrospective of his work was organized by the Mitchell Museum in Mount Vernon, Illinois. Calcagno’s work is in many major museums throughout the country, including the Oakland Museum, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
