Vermont Hills, 1930
by Luigi Lucioni (1900–1988)12⅛ x 15 inches
Signed and dated lower left: L. Lucioni 30; on verso: Vermont Hills
Provenance
The artist
Ferargil Galleries, New York, New York, acquired from above
Private collection, Delaware
Sale, Bunch Auctions, Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, September 12, 2023, lot 30665
Private collection, New York, New York, acquired from above
Related Works
Vermont Landscape, 1930, oil on canvas, 18⅛ x 26⅛ inches; Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, Museum of Art, Utica, New York
Village of Stowe, Vermont, 1931, oil on canvas, 23½ x 33½ inches; The Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minnesota
Note: Vermont became a significant location for Luigi Lucioni. As is described in the book Picturing Old New England: Image and Memory, “Rural Vermont reminded [Lucioni] of northern Italy […] The hills of Vermont struck a home chord because they also signified certain ‘American’ values that were important to him. The act of painting rural Vermont, therefore, became a way of reinforcing those values, and, not incidentally, of marking his achievement in this country.”[1]
[1] William H. Truettner and Roger B. Stein, eds, Picturing Old New England: Image and Memory (Washington, DC: National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 1999), 217.
Artist Biography
Luigi Lucioni emigrated from his native Italy to the United States in 1911. Already interested in art from the age of six, Lucioni continued his studies at New York schools including the Cooper Union and National Academy of Art and was later granted a scholarship from the Tiffany Foundation. He traveled to Italy in 1925 where he discovered what he referred to as “classic realism” in the works of Italian masters Piero della Francesca, Andrea Mantegna and Leonardo da Vinci. Lucioni returned to America, where he received his first solo exhibition in 1927. His works were marked by a heightened