Media + Press | Frank Rampolla

Short Artist Statement

To give form, structure, to immobilize the vagaries that are called ideas and intuitions, are for me the reasons for picture making.

To give dignity without pomp, to lend significance without anecdote-in short, to become a performance of the visual is the objective.

Full Artist Statement

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Artist Bio
Frank Rampolla (1931-1971) was a master figurative expressionist artist & art professor.

Rampolla, schooled in the ways of the old masters, had an extraordinary classical knowledge of the arts and literature. He was a classically trained pianist and composer as well as a painter, sculptor, and printmaker.

During his prime art-making days, as always, the arts were an integral facet of American society––they reflected the national issues on the time. In the sixties, it was the Civil Rights movement, women’s rights and the pill, Vietnam, Camelot, the Cold War, space raves, along with drugs, rock n’ roll, free love and the hippies searching for the meaning of freedom and expression.

The art welcomed rebellion but by the 1960’s, paintings of soup cans and gumball machines became the mainstream. A few artists chose the path led not by the whims of the market, but rather the truth of their own conscience with a deep concern for the human condition. Frank Rampolla ascended from this select group.

Rampolla’s Figurative-Expressionist artwork rendering the human condition in the 1960’s influenced a generation of artists. His work is just as relevant to today’s world as was in the 60’s.