HLaCagnina

Henry La Cagnina's love affair with Key West goes back 77 years. When the Great Depression shook our nation's economy in 1933, Key West was particularly hit hard with 85% of its people on relief. Wrecking and cigar making had come to an end. Key West was overpopulated and there was no space for industry or agriculture. Tourism was gearing up in South Florida, but it was focused on the wide white beaches. Enter the Works Progress Administration, or WPA.

To help restore the town's economy, the federal government, via the WPA, turned to a different kind of tourism for the Keys. Thirteen artists were chosen to share their visions of the unique cultural climate of the Keys with the rest of the country. And it worked. Key West became a showcase for cultural tourism. Today, there are more galleries and artist per capita than anywhere else in the country.

Henry LaCagnina was one of the thirteen artists eventually selected for this project. His career was in full swing then and has continued unabated till this day. The Gallery on Greene is extremely excited to represent an artist of this caliber and prestige.

Over his 70 year career, La Cagnina has worked in many aspects of art. The fifth generation of Italian church painters, La Cagnina was raised in a tradition that required expertise in practical and fine art applications as well as varying media. He has applied this tradition over the course of his career. His posters encouraged the war effort along with those of 350 other invited artists were exhibited at the National Gallery in Washington, D. C. in 1943 and toured nationwide. His work has been collected by the Fords, Melons and others. La Cagnina has owned galleries, developed a reputation as a muralist, industrial designer, educator and art jurist as well as achieving ongoing success as a fine artist.

In the current work for The Gallery on Greene, La Cagnina demonstrates his classical training and the influences of his long career. Asked by gallery director Nance Frank to create works specifically for The Gallery on Greene, La Cagnina brings his breadth of experience to a subject often treated mundanely-the marine landscape-and raises it to high art. In La Cagnina's capable hands, these marine tableaus become witty essays on cubism, surrealism and abstraction. Vividly colored, masterfully rendered, these mixed media paintings are exquisitely crafted. Few artists can make fresh a subject the way La Cagnina does, all the while demonstrating the art movements of the modern age.