In the turbulent Sixties, many artists were escaping to flat, pretty colored worlds with an eye to the business of art in New York. Rampolla’s contemporaries were painting soup cans, comic book art and making junk sculptures. He meanwhile was drawing exquisite nudes. Their works made art look easy. His works perplexed. Their works aimed to please. His defied the American bourgeoise. At that time came the first stirrings of our depthless, ahistoric present. Dada became easy to appropriate and rejection of self, fervor and truth was “in” for American Artists. Frank, however, maintained a direct reaction to life. It was to his own life he reacted, and in doing so, made art which challenges us to reconsider our positions. Not bound to the pressures of the bourgeoning art market, he used modes true to what he was, a New York City American of Italian heritage. He was free to accept his artistic geneology. By example, his admiration for Jules Pascin and Egon Schiele was based solely on mutual interest in the erotic. And Rampolla’s work stands as a distinct example that the erotic is important a subject as is consumerism of pop and dada-made-chic. The erotic element in his work is certainly more human, being non-materialistic and it goes right to the core without superficial representation. What people cannot accept – what they dismiss and reject as “difficult art”, too much trouble to appreciate, in actuality freed Rampolla to do something higher. Being free to the desire to make acceptable art, removed the influences of inhibition and self-censorship from his creativity. When a minor furor grew over his submissions to an Atlanta GA Museum show, he withdrew his works. As he related this account to me, he had a little smile of resolve and resignation on his face. I knew he was conscious, as Beethoven was, that he was creating for a better audience. And as he said of his work, “Music if freer, it doesn’t have to look like something”, he was a bit amused that his full frontal, gestural truthfulness was nearly admitted into a 1970 show in a major southern city.

– Dennis Potokar

A Timeless Tribute to a Friend and Great Teacher: Frank Rampolla
Teacher at the Ringling School of Art: 1960–1968. University of South Florida, 1968 -71.

He came here inconspicuously where his presence was casual, quiet, and polite, but his exit was awesomely accomplished and great. Within a span of just twelve years, he became a monumental figure in Sarasota and Tampa. The irony was that this sunny, beachy, tourist state was the least place that would be expected to host the most profound thinker and teacher, in the State of Florida. He was a Great Man, and a wonderful Human Being who had a sense of humor and well-directed sarcasm. There will never be another like Him here, or anywhere.

He started with Michelangelo… and he then showed Michelangelo’s parallel in music – Beethoven. He mentioned Raphael, and brought forth Mozart. He taught of the Spanish inquisition, and of Dostoyevsky. There was an undercurrent of the incarnate and spirit, kneaded together in flesh and the movement of life and History that Rampolla beheld. He knew of Religion, and Circumstance, of Culture and Literature. He touched his students deeply, some of whom wished to transcend their mortality, being forever transformed as beings who only lived to create timeless images, that held the mysteries of form in existence.

Rampolla taught of the immortality of great cultural achievements, of the intertwining of tragic death and exuberant life, of mad artists and voluptuous women, of Saints and Tyrants, of Humankinds tragedies and the fortuitous irony of events that fostered writing, art, music, and the theater.

He knew of the underpinnings of life and its mysteries, of Man’s virtues and sins. He touched young minds, and all minds who came to learn. Rampolla used the talents that God gave him to reach and teach, to create prolifically, and to share his resources with all those around him. He was a great Man who – while in life left a legacy of hard work, yet in death sustains the cultural leanings of those who were fortunate to have met him and know him.

In quiet solace we think of Rampolla when in those intimate moments, we recall his genius, and we remember his teachings; we transcend the transitory trivia that surrounds us and we travel (with him) to the silent secrets that tell of eternal truths that give understanding and meaning to life.