William Starkweather an American Impressionist Whose Time Has Come

William Starkweather, 1879-1969,  is the featured artist in a wonderful new exhibition, "Inside and Out,"  at the Art League of Long Island. Click right on the paintings to see larger images.

Bringing William Starkweather into prominence is due totally to the efforts of Peter Falotico of Stony Brook, Long Island.

Starkweather in his studio.

This artist was  actually known to me because I worked as an art teacher for a Long Island School District, Northport-East Northport, where Peter Falotico  was my director. 

We had the love of collecting American art in common.  Peter was fortunate to have a father who was in the business, and collected and frequented auctions, buying and selling artworks in NYC.

This is a picture of Pete's dad, Peter Frank Falotico, and there is an accompanying explanation of their relationship and love of art and collecting.

 A lovely postcard invitation

came to my house inviting me to the gallery opening and lecture on Starkweather, by Peter Falotico,

and Dr. Marcus Burke, senior curator of the Hispanic Society of America.  The connection between the Hispanic Society of America and Starkweather came about because Joaquin Sarolla, 

a well known Hispanic-American artist,  was Starkweather's mentor.

This is the largest assembly of Starkweather's works to date.

One doesn't have to be from Europe to be considered a true Impressionist.  Starkweather's colorations and textured paint strokes attest to this.  His use of impasto paint, gives many of his landscapes, cityscapes, and seascapes dimension and an exciting vitality of passion.

One of the Starkweathers which was unlike the others, a watercolor, was a composition, an homage to Leonardo da Vinci.

There are two similar images of Leonardo in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy, but although one was thought to be a self-portrait, they are both now considered to be by other artists.

Starkweather's Leonardo is the consummate teacher, artist,  and visionary.

In the background he had included a "picture within a picture"

of the Mona Lisa,

 

the Madonna of the Rocks,  Louvre version,

the enigmatic St. John the Baptist,

 
and the Virgin and Child With St. Anne and a Lamb.
 
Starkweather also included a cat in the painting, reflecting  Leonardo's many sketches of cats.

The skull on the table

reminds us that Leonardo, a scientist,  made probably the most accurate anatomical drawings of humans ever done.

Across the bottom, of this painting, Starkweather wrote in the "mirror reflection" style writing that Leonardo used to keep his scientific studies secret.

In the end, the real topic of this lecture and exhibit  presented by the Art League and Falotico, a lifetime art educator, was about teaching students, mentoring them to love art, to strive to collect it, and to create artworks themselves.
An in depth review of this exhibit, by the Times Beacon Record can be found by clicking this link.