5 Mead St, South Orange, NJ
Time: 7:00 pm–9:00 pm
Ugo Giannini: Drawing D-Day an Artist’s Journey
November 8- December 20
Opening, November 8, 7-9pm
Book Signing, Reading and Curator’s Talk TBA
The Pierro Gallery of South Orange presents an exhibition that features a group of drawings made on the spot during the 1944 Normandy invasion on Omaha Beach by West Orange Artist, Ugo Giannini (1919-1993). His family discovered the series of 27 war drawings for the first time after his death, dates showing they were made beginning on D-Day through the end of the war: June 6, 1944 to May 1945. Some of the locales depicted are Vierville sur Mer, Issigny, St. Lo and Vire. Also Valkenburg, Holland as well as Germany/ ( Julich and Alsdorf). The exhibition also features Giannini’s related works made throughout his life time.
The works are done in pencil or pen in the gritty realist style he had been taught as a high school art student at the National Academy of Design shortly before the war. Later works in the exhibition were influenced by his studies with Fernand Léger in Paris under the GI Bill and his ongoing passion for the contemporary art of his time. Yet the war drawings remain formative of a life view that became integral to the underlying essence of his art.
Giannini was among the first wave of soldiers to land shortly after H-Hour on D-Day. It was a harrowing experience that would crowd his memory all his life, though he would rarely talk about it. Giannini’s widow, Maxine Giannini has complied a book about the war drawings and letters from the artist titled, Drawing D-Day: An Artist's Journey Through War. She will be present, along with the curators, to read from the book and discuss the exhibition, date and time to be announced.
GALLERY HOURS: Wed/Thurs, 2-7pm, Fri/Sat, 2-4pm & by appointment. CLOSED SUNDAYS
