Len Tantillo |
Len Tantillo says his art career probably
began when he was no more than six years old. He’s quick to
add that his professional career began a little later.
But the interest was there from the start, he emphasizes. “I
have always had the desire to become an artist.”
The son of a dad who ran a family grocery store
and schoolteacher mom, his first exposure to the world of
professional art began when, at age 12, the owner of The
New Paltz Gallery, rented space on the first floor of the
two-story, century old building that served as both business
and residence for the Tantillo family. “Mrs. Killiam, I
don’t think I ever knew her first name,” he says, “liked
me and sometimes let me help her hang shows. She was the first
adult I ever knew who made a living in the art world.” |
In addition to running the gallery one of the
other things their new tenant did that interested her young admirer,
was to apply watercolor over 19th century engravings of
nautical scenes, ship wrecks, storms at sea, sunsets etc., clipped
from period newspapers. “She would cut up these old newspapers and
mount the pictures of ships, then add watercolor and sell them. She
did dozens of these.”
Tantillo says he first began thinking of marine
art as an art form through the exposure to her work, and while he
doesn’t recall what eventually happened to the kind woman who
influenced him so much as a young boy, he does recall with obvious
affection the profound affect she had on his life. “It had such an
influence on me that I started copying the artwork myself. I made a
number of crude paintings that depicted sailing ships and steamboats.
I had no training but I loved to do it.”
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"Albany Shipyard",
oil on canvas, © by Len Tantillo
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His fascination with the world of art and
history grew, and as the years passed, so did his talent.
“I always attribute my interest in art to two things:
growing up in a beautiful historic old town with many
buildings from the 1600’s, and the incredible storytellers
that used to visit my father’s store. I would listen
intently to their descriptions of the fantastic adventures of
their lives ─ everything from wars and farming accidents
to the construction of barns and every day life in the
1930’s.” In those days, Tantillo recalls, there were no
major
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chain supermarkets. The corner store was the center of
neighborhood activity and friendly gossip. But
mostly it was his mother’s pride in her
son’s work that gave him the confidence to move forward.
“Showing my stuff to her friends, that was a real confidence
builder,” he recalls. Sensing her son’s talent, his
mother, Emma, gave him his first easel at age fourteen. “She
decided that her young artist son needed an easel and hired a
carpenter to build it.” He describes the easel as “awkward
and heavy” and admits he probably complained about it more
than he should have. “But I did put it to good use.”
Len’s mother passed away long before seeing
where her faith in her son’s interests would lead, but today at 56,
Len Tantillo is at the top of his form.
An artist member of the American Society of
Marine Artists, his recent painting, The Marigold at Raspberry
Island, 1939, a depiction of the Coast Guard tender Marigold,
delivering supplies at Raspberry Island off Lake Superior, won the
prestigious Rudolph J. Schaefer Award at the 21st
Annual Mystic International Exhibition. The Schaefer award, named
after the late brewer reads: “In recognition of Rudolph J.
Schaefer's devotion to preserving maritime history and making it
accessible and enjoyable, the judges recognize the artist whose work
entered in the show best documents our maritime heritage, past or
present, for generations of the future.”
Interestingly, like many artists I have spoken
with, Tantillo didn’t actually start out as a gallery artist, even
though he enjoyed painting from an early age. “I began serious
painting in the early 1980’s, but was interested in art my whole
life.
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"Southwest Harbor, oil on canvas, © by
Len Tantillo
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A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, he worked
successfully as an architect in 1976 and then moved to commercial art
from 1976 to 1984. During this period he experimented with different
mediums, settled with oil on linen, and refined his style by studying
the works of those American and English painters he admired and the
luminist style they pioneered. It was the Hudson River School artists
and their works, a style identified by it authentic, |
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"Experiment
in China", oil on canvas, © by Len Tantillo
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almost romanticized landscape depictions of the pristine American wilderness
centered on Hudson Valley, New York and New England, that attracted
his interest. Similarly, his marine paintings, not unlike the work of
the early English painters he admired: Thomas Somerscales, Montague
Dawson, and John Stobart, to name a few, are fully representative of
the era and accurate to the greatest detail. |
When he made the decision to make the change
from commercial to private artist, he was capable and ready, and his
success was immediate. His first commission, begun in 1984, The
City of Albany, New York, 1868, took a year to complete and
now hangs in a private collection.
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"Salt Marsh Sanctuary", oil on
canvas, © by Len Tantillo
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Tantillo notes that while a career as a designer
and commercial artist were helpful, his talent as a painter and
interest in using art to communicate a sense of history came
naturally, beginning probably when he began painting ships and
steamboats as a young boy in New Paltz. Although he never sailed
aboard a ship at sea, Tantillo says he’s had a lifelong “and
intense connection to the Hudson River.” He recounts: “The day
after I was born was the first time I crossed the river, and to this
day I look at the Hudson nearly every day. I have fished on it, swam
in it, cruised its entire length and never tired of its magnificent
vistas.”
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His
attention to detail and the authenticity of subject, time
and place is carefully researched. A typical Len Tantillo
painting, for example, may start with a visit to the
library, a consultation with historians, or studying
archives for historic details. In some cases Tantillo says
he’ll build a model first and work from several sketches
before laying brush to canvas. He seeks to capture through
his work a sense of the period he paints, which is why many
of the works that he classifies as “historic”, are
dated; for example: Marigold, alluded to above, circa.
1939. Another of his works is the Union Depot, 1879.
Subject, place and time tell a story, that Tantillo
communicates through each painting.
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"Apples
and Flour", oil on canvas, © by Len Tantillo
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Tantillo’s large body of accumulated work, he paints about five
major works and between 20 and 30 non historical paintings a year in
original oils on canvas, and he has divided them into categories: Historic, Age of Sail, Steam and
Diesel Vessels, US Lighthouses, supplemented by more
contemporary still life and landscapes, the latter of which he views
as a diversion from the tedium and attention to fine detail required
to complete an accurate historic depiction. “I find the process of painting detailed historical subjects to be, at times, tedious and
difficult. For me, still life and plein air are a refreshing change
of pace and quite relaxing.” |
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"Autumn Hills", oil on canvas, © by
Len Tantillo
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One of his recently sold painting,
titled Salt Marsh Sanctuary, shows a three masted
schooner anchored at the end of a winding, almost photo realistic
marsh in Barnstable, MA. His Autumn Hills, a magnificent
panoramic view of a farm in upstate New York, a work he says is
“near and dear to my heart because it captures the glory of upstate
New York at the peak of its fall color”.
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Tantillo’s
talent has earned him recognition in the August 2002 edition of
“Offshore Magazine”, and has placed him on a select list of
notables whose work is nationally recognized for its historical
accuracy and preservation value. With twenty years of painting under
his belt, he says he has “literally thousands of images displayed
in businesses and homes across the world.” The largest, he notes,
is a 10-foot long painting, that took two years to complete, hangs in
the lobby of KeyBank in Albany, New York. It’s a depiction
of the ten man crew, sixty foot sloop named the Experiment
built in 1783 returning to its home port of Albany in 1787
after a successful 26,000 mile round trip voyage to China. Tantillo
says he found the history of the Experiment interesting.
Originally designed to traverse the waterways of New York and its
inner harbors, the captain, a revolutionary war hero (a commissioned
privateer) named Stewart Dean, built the Experiment to do
more. With the war over, he made the decision to cross the ocean and
open trade between the emerging city of Albany and the busy markets
of China.
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"Winter Solstice", oil on canvas © by
Len Tantillo
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With
works such as these, Len Tantillo has carved out a niche,
painting museum quality works that capture the feeling not only
of a period, but also of the style of the classic painters of
that era. When you look at his most recent work, Winter
Solstice, and Portrait
of America a painting he calls “a glorious tow boat” you
see exactly what makes this artist’s works so prized.
And, with works like these it is no wonder that his original works
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sell rapidly. However, he has reproduced most of his images as limited edition giclées
making these stunning images available to a broader audience.
Mr.
Tantillo's original oils, as well as his
limited
edition giclées,
can be found at
his Dennis, Massachusetts gallery, Winstanley-Roark
Fine Arts, http://www.masterfulart.com.
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