Charles Fazzino

Charles Fazzino is an American pop artist, known for his silkscreen serigraphs in a 3D pop art style.

Background

Front view of "Raining Gold" by Charles Fazzino

Side view of "Raining Gold", showing the 3D design of the artwork

Born in 1955, Charles Fazzino is the son of a Finnish sculptor (Irene) and an Italian mode shoe designer (Salvatore). He took his first formal art class as a 7th grader in 1967 and had his first solo art exhibition at Pelham Memorial High School in 1968. He often accompanied his mother to the arts and crafts shows (in which she exhibited) and in 1971, he put up his own display at the Bedford Hills Outdoor Arts Show — the first time he exhibited for the general public.

He attended the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan and graduated with his bachelor of arts in 1977. Today, his works are sold and exhibited in hundreds of galleries and museums in more than 20 countries worldwide.^[1] He has been commissioned to create artwork events such as The Super Bowl,^[2] The Grammy Awards,^[3] The Pori Jazz Festival, Major League Baseball All-Star Game,^[4] and the Daytime Emmy Awards.^[5]

Fazzino is most well known for the three-dimensionality of his silkscreen serigraphs. In 1980, while exhibiting in the juried arts fairs in Florida, Fazzino attended a 3-D paper tole class in an arts supply store. He experimented with the technique and showed his first three-dimensional print at the Greenwich Village Art Show in New York City in May 1980. Fazzino entered the gallery circuit when he sold his first 3D offset lithographs to a gallery in Michigan. He began using the silkscreen printing process in 1986.

The Fazzino 3D process

Fazzino's three-dimensional creations are labor-intensive, requiring several stages to complete. The artist begins with a flat drawing that is worked and re-worked for weeks or even months before the limited edition process even begins. The flat artwork is sent to a silkscreen printer who spends months hand-printing the flat fine art reproductions. The flat sheets return to Fazzino's studio where more than 40 artists work under his direction, all by hand, to cut out the elements from cutout sheets and mount them onto heavier boards to create the 3D layered effect. Fazzino often equates the process of building up the layers of artwork to "layering it like a lasagna." The 3D artworks are finished off by hand with glitter and Swarovski crystals.^[6]

Special event commissions

Fazzino has created artwork for ten Major League Baseball All-Star Games. In 2014, when the All-Star Game was in Minneapolis, he partnered with The Minnesota Twins Community Foundation to donate artwork and raise funds to support the charity's mission.^[7]

Fazzino was commissioned to create the official artwork for the 75th Anniversary of Little League Baseball. As part of the project, he spent several days in Williamsport in February 2014, conducting educational workshops for students and teachers. The resulting work was exhibited during the World Series at the Gallery at Penn College. Fazzino's official art was also unveiled during the series and installed in the World of Little League Museum.^[8][9]

Having commemorated every Super Bowl for the National Football League since Super Bowl XXXV in Tampa Bay, Fazzino was profiled by CBS Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood on Super Bowl XLVII Sunday in New Orleans, LA on February 3, 2013.^[10] He most recently commemorated The New England Patriots win in Super Bowl XLIX in Phoenix, Arizona.^[11]

In 2004, Fazzino created the official artwork for the 46th annual Grammy Awards. He joined the ranks of artists such as world-renowned architect Frank Gehry, Photographer/Filmmaker David LaChapelle, and Mosaic Artist Roy Feinson, who have all been commissioned by the Academy before and since.^[12]

Fazzino accepted a commission from the United States Olympic Committee to create the official artwork for the 2013 Warrior Games. The Games are an annual competition between wounded warriors from each of the military services and from the UK.^[13]

Fazzino's foray into the theater came in 2012 when he collaborated with the producers of The Ride. The Fazzino Ride was an interactive tour of Manhattan designed by Fazzino and Ride producer Richard Humphrey. The innovative tour bus featured Fazzino's artwork on the outside and on high definition monitors on the inside. The experience — part tourist attraction and part performance art — took riders on an adventure through the streets of Manhattan as experienced through Fazzino's 3D pop art world.^[14] In the end, The Fazzino Ride was nominated for a 2013 Drama Desk Award for Unique Theatrical Experience.^[15]

Major works

JFK International Airport Collection for American Airlines at Terminal 8: The collection includes a 6' by 7' rotating 3D sculpture of an American Airlines plane entitled From New York...to the World and a 13' three-dimensional mural and mobile that welcomes travelers to New York City as they travel down to baggage claim.^[16]

Museum installations and exhibitions

Charles Fazzino with 3-D popart plane sculpture at JFK airport

In 2010–2011, Fazzino hosted a major museum exhibition titled "The Faces of Fort Lauderdale" at the Museum of Art | Fort Lauderdale. The exhibition celebrated the 100-year history of the area and Fazzino contributed to it in his role as the official artist for the centennial celebration.^[17]

Fazzino's first major museum exhibition in Germany took place from April 27 through June 22 at the International Academy of Art in Hembach.^[18][19] The district of Kreis Duren invited the artist to exhibit at the Academy and commissioned him to create an edition of artwork titled "For the Love of Kreis Düren".^[20]

In 2015, Fazzino was chosen to participate in a group show at the Coral Springs Museum of Art in Florida. The show, titled "The Art of Pop & Comics" featured eight pieces by Fazzino, including a tribute to the Masters titled "A Cartoon Celebration of the Masters," in which Fazzino weaves popular cartoon characters into pieced-together scenes by masters such as Vincent Van Gogh, Leonardo da Vinci, Edvard Munch, and Jackson Pollock. "This is a tribute piece," said Fazzino. "The paintings I chose from the Masters are so incredibly recognizable, as are the characters now interwoven throughout them. It's a meeting of two worlds with two different languages that come together in this one, intricately assembled, composition."^[21][22]

In 2015, Fazzino was commissioned create an artwork celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Singapore. He made his debut in the country in May 2015 to unveil the work and participate in several receptions and a media tour.^[23][24][25]

Global exhibits

Fazzino's work is exhibited in many countries around the world, including:

• Denmark^[26]
• Dubai^[27]
• Finland - The official artist of the 2009 Pori Jazz Festival in Pori, Finland^[28][29][30]
• France^[31] - The official artist for the annual Foie de Lyon festival in Lyon, France.^[32]
• Germany^[33]
• Japan^[34]
• Luxembourg^[35]
• Singapore^[36]
• Switzerland^[37]
• United States - Appearance at Ocean Galleries at Stone Harbor, NJ in celebration of Memorial Day^[38][39]

Intent

Fazzino has stated on numerous occasions, and in many ways, that his intent as an artist is to create a body of work that reflects the highlights of popular culture back to his audience: reminding them of who they are, where they come from, and what moves them as human beings. He once wrote "...all of my art is a labor of love for all of you who have enjoyed my work for so long. When we're all gone and many years have passed, I hope that our descendants will look at one of my paintings and say 'that's a Fazzino'. He was that artist who painted those zany pictures of what life was really like back then.'"^[40]

References

Sources

• "Making the World Pop with Charles Fazzino". Westchester Magazine. 1 October 2015. 
• "5 Questions With … Pop Artist Charles Fazzino". Atlantic City Weekly. 23 June 2011. Retrieved 12 January 2015. 
• "A Digital Museum of GRAMMY Artwork". www.grammy.com. 3 May 2012. Retrieved 12 January 2015. 
• "3-D Pop Artist Charles Fazzino Partners with MLB All-Star Game for Good Cause". Parade's CommunityTable.com. 11 July 2014. Retrieved 12 January 2015. 
• "The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences announces winners of the 38th annual daytime entertainment Emmy Awards.". emmyonline.org. 19 June 2011. Retrieved 12 January 2015. 
• "CBS Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood; Super Bowl artist Charles Fazzino". CBS News. Retrieved 12 January 2015. 
• CBS Sunday Morning Video
• "Westchester Guide". New York Times. 6 September 1992. Retrieved 12 January 2015. 
• "For Charles Fazzino, home is where the art is". USA Today. 26 January 2006. Retrieved 12 January 2015. 
• Maner, J (2014). O Beautiful for Spacious Skies, ISBN 0-9755008-5-6
• Maner, J (2007). Fazzino's Passport to Our World, ISBN 0-9755008-1-3
• Maner, J (1999). Charles Fazzino: The Master of 3D Pop Art, ISBN 3-8238-5441-0

External links

• Official website
• Fazzino's Blog