His life
Thomas John LoPresti was born on the 18th of December, 1910, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, to Giusto Lo Presti and Filippa Di Fede, who had come from Misilmeri, a hill town outside Palermo, and married at Old St. Patrick's on Mulberry Street two years earlier.
By his own account he started early: at the age of five, he wrote, he “used the sidewalks of New York as his canvas.” The family moved to the Bronx, to Lorillard Place in the Belmont neighborhood, where his grandparents Mariano and Antonina also lived. In the fall of 1934, at twenty-three, he enrolled in the evening school at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn — the first season of a three-year course in advertising design, eighty evenings of two hours each. The tuition ticket survives. He also took classes at Cooper Union and the Mechanics Institute, and his son Tommy believed he once tried to join Disney's animation studio.
In October 1937 he married Audrey Petra Bowen, a typist from Nelson Avenue whose mother was Norwegian and whose father, an English valet, had died on Christmas Day three years before. Tom was a clerk. He stayed one: for the rest of his working life he commuted to the home office of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company on Madison Avenue, extension 5425.
They raised two sons, Thomas and Richard, and after the war moved up the line to 81 Lincoln Avenue in Tuckahoe, in the Crestwood section. The basement became the studio. Richard remembered him coming up the stairs “like a human Polaroid camera” with another finished painting. He painted at night and on weekends, sketched on the train, and filled sixteen sketchbooks on summer trips to Montauk, Cape Cod, Gloucester, Ogunquit and Bar Harbor.
He had, as he put it on a typed résumé, “teachers — none — in oil.” He exhibited constantly from 1961 until two years before his death: the Crestwood Women's Club annuals, the First Tuesday Art Club, the Washington Square Outdoor Art Exhibit in Greenwich Village, one-man shows at the Tuckahoe and White Plains libraries, open-air shows at Chappaqua, Armonk and Bedford Hills. In March 1964 he won the blue ribbon at Crestwood for an oil called Silent Sentinel, and wrote “I won Blue Ribbon” on the cover of the catalog. That June he gave a painting to the Eastchester Historical Society. In 1968 a decorative-picture publisher offered fifty dollars apiece for reproduction rights to four of his Raggedy-doll paintings, and he reasoned it through on a memo to himself: a new artist “is most fortunate if accepted at all.”
He played the piano by ear, painted rocks, planted African impatiens, and painted a portrait of his mother Filippa that hung in his son's house for fifty years. He had just joined the Westchester Art Society and was planning to spend retirement painting around the country when he died on 19 December 1973, the day after his sixty-third birthday. Audrey outlived him by twenty-seven years.
“To interpret what one sees, to canvas, an artist should also feel, so to capture the ‘Art Spirit’ if he can. The ‘Art Spirit’ however, is a Will O the Wisp, not easily captured.”Thomas J. LoPresti, typed artist statement, c. 1965
Year by year
Reconstructed from his own papers — show notices, entry forms, award certificates, letters and two handwritten biographies — and from a 2022 recording of his sons. Prices are the asking prices he wrote on the entry lists.
- c.1915Sidewalk chalk
At the age of five, by his own account, he 'used the sidewalks of New York as his canvas.' (his bio drafts)
scans 0013, 0015, 0021 - 1934–35Pratt Institute, evening school
First season of a three-year Advertising Design course: 80 evenings of two hours. Credit card and two tuition tickets survive. He also studied at Cooper Union and Mechanics Institute (dates unknown). Uncle Tommy believes he 'tried to join the Disney team to do cartoon work'.
website items 061, 062, 069; scans 0011, 0057; 2022 recording - 1930sEarly sketchbooks
Uncle Tommy has seen work 'from the '30s … while he was in school' among the cases in his basement.
2022 recording - 1961New Rochelle Outdoor Show
Exhibited outdoors at New Rochelle in 1961 and 1962 (his own outline). The First Tuesday Art Club's first annual exhibit was about 1961.
scan 0011 - Mar 1962Women's Club of Crestwood, 16th Annual — 'Portrait of Filippa' and 'The Card Players'
Entered and fee paid 10 Feb 1962; show at Wesley Hall, Asbury Church, 167 Scarsdale Rd., Tuckahoe, 26–27 March 1962. His earliest dated show. The portrait is almost certainly of his mother.
scan 0043 - 1963First Tuesday Art Club, Third Annual Exhibit
Three oils: 'Stroll with Susie' $100, 'Morning Gloucester Harbor' $200, 'Breaking Waves, Bass Rock' $150. Fellow members: Amalie Baumann, H. Ogden Campbell, S. Alfio Cristina (founder), Hy Hintermeister, Susan Huvane, Pearl Mandell, Janice Milese.
scan 0081; website item 044 - 1963Crestwood Women's Club — Third Prize (oil); Tuckahoe Library one-man show; Greenwich Village outdoor; Eastchester Town Hall club show
Per his 'Thumb Nail Biography (Age 56)'. A later typed résumé says the third prize was 1962 and first prize 1963; the annotated 1964 catalog supports 1963/1964.
scans 0029–0031, 0028 - Mar 1964Crestwood Women's Club, 18th Annual — BLUE RIBBON (First Prize, oil) for 'Silent Sentinel'
Sprain Brook Branch, Yonkers Public Library, 23–27 March 1964. He wrote 'I won Blue Ribbon' on the cover. A 'B. F. Bowen' showed a portrait, 'Amy', in the same show.
scans 0040–0042 - Mar 1964Metropolitan Life Hobby Show — Certificate of Commendation
Home Office Social Organizations, Arts and Collections, 20 March 1964. His day job, in the Met Life home office, is documented here and in his phone notes ('Met Life Ins Co … Ext 5425').
scans 0006, 0018 - Apr 1964First Tuesday Art Club, 'Spring Fare', Bronxville Library
Fourth annual exhibition; reception Sunday 5 April.
scan 0061 - May 1964Two-man show with Susan Huvane, Bronxville Library
Oils and watercolors, through 30 May; reception 10 May. The press called them 'most consistent prize winners in local group shows'.
scans 0059, 0060; website item 023 - Jun 1964Donated a painting to the Eastchester Historical Society
Letter of thanks from Mrs. Harry V. Knowles, President, 25 June 1964: shown at Town Hall and added to the permanent collection. A surviving work may still be there.
scans 0099, 0100 - Sep 1964Chappaqua / New Castle Open Air Art Show — Honorable Mention for 'Lady in Pink'
Fence space #14, 12 Sept 1964; Art Achievement Award certificate from the New Castle Recreation Commission.
scans 0003–0005, 0096 - 1964–70Washington Square Outdoor Art Exhibit, Greenwich Village
Juried 'Certificate of Approval' signed by chairman Nell Boardman; registration notices for Fall 1964, Spring 1969, Fall 1969 and Spring 1970 all addressed to 81 Lincoln Ave. Uncle Tommy walked the Village with him in the early '60s.
scans 0062–0070; 2022 recording - 1964–65Armonk outdoor shows (not juried)scans 0019, 0020
- Mar 1965Crestwood Women's Club, 19th Annual — 'Bursting Surf, Ogunquit, Maine' (N.I.C.)
Shown not-in-competition as the prior year's blue-ribbon winner. The 1965 sketchbook cover also names Bar Harbor, Ogunquit and Oakland.
scans 0001, 0002, 0045; website sketchbook 1965 - Sep 1965Bedford Hills 1st Annual Open Air Art Show
Registered 7 Aug 1965.
scan 0097 - c.1965–66Biographies written
Handwritten drafts (on Red Cross letterhead) and typed fair copies: 'native New Yorker … born in 1910 on the lower east side of Italian parents who had emigrated from Sicily'; 'teachers – none – in oil'; worked with Peter Hayward; painted with Hayward and Frank Herbst at the Salmagundi Club; galleries Wurlitzer and Braxton (Manhattan), Awards (Yonkers), Virginia Barrett (Bedford Hills), Profiles in Art (Shawnee on the Delaware); patrons the Kochs of Scarsdale, the Landers of Tuckahoe, and Fred Waring; lecture 'The Art Spirit' to the Sub-Debs of Crestwood.
scans 0008–0031 - Feb 1966One-man show, White Plains Public Library
Reporter Dispatch, 9 Feb 1966: 'City Library To Exhibit Oil Paintings'.
scan 0057; website item 021 - Apr 1966Braxton Art Company check, $25
A. & W. Kalischer, props., 210 E. 58th St. His notes record '6 Pict.' placed at Braxton.
scans 0071, 0072, 0018; website item 036 - Nov 1967Woman's Club of White Plains — 'Animal, Vegetable, Mineral #3' ($175) and a sculpture, 'The Family' (NFS)
First evidence he exhibited sculpture.
scans 0046–0049 - Jul 1968Arthur A. Kaplan Co. — ten 'Raggedy doll' paintings
The decorative-picture publisher offered $50 each for reproduction rights to four. His own memo of 10 July 1968 reasons it through: 'a new artist … is most fortunate if accepted at all'. Rich found the letter decades later.
scans 0036–0039, 0078–0080; 2022 recording - 1969Virginia Barrett Gallery, Bedford Hills — church art sale
Invitation to the Bedford Presbyterian Church 'Spring Art Collection' preview, 9 May 1969.
scans 0054–0056 - Dec 196922 sketches given to Met Life coworkers
A pencil list of 22 names picking numbers: 'it's only fair to choose from my own Bosses … Comments please.'
scan 0007 - 1970Burke Rehabilitation Center benefit; Council for the Arts in Westchester
Invited to the Burke auction because his work was 'of unusual interest and originality' (April 1970); asked the Council for a list of commercial galleries (Oct 1970).
scans 0087–0090, 0101, 0102 - 1971Westchester Art Society member; Woman's Club of White Plains show (31 Oct–4 Nov 1971)
Money order for two entry fees signed 20 Oct 1971 — still exhibiting two years before his death.
scans 0050–0053, 0092–0098 - 19 Dec 1973Death
Aged 63, the day after his 63rd birthday. Richard P.'s notes say he hoped to spend retirement painting and sketching around the country.
Richard P. notes 2021
Titles he gave his paintings
Places
Birthplace of Giusto Lo Presti and Filippa Di Fede — a hill town ten miles southeast of Palermo. Named on their 1908 marriage certificate.
Filippa's and Giusto's addresses at marriage, 1908 — two doors apart on the same block.
Where Giusto and Filippa married, 19 July 1908.
Tom born here, 1910; 'used the sidewalks of New York as his canvas' at five.
Tom's home at marriage, 1937, in the Belmont / Arthur Avenue neighborhood — and the home of his grandparents Mariano and Antonina Di Fede, where Antonina died in 1939.
Where Tom and Audrey married, 2 Oct 1937 (Our Savior parish).
Tom and Audrey's house from at least 1961 to 1973; Anna died from here in 1961; every art notice from 1964–71 is addressed here. The basement studio.
Tom's New York Central stop to Grand Central and Met Life; he painted 'Bronx River at Crestwood Station'.
Family vacations; the 1965 and 1967 sketchbooks; 'Bursting Surf, Ogunquit' (1965); a 'Village House' property Audrey later sold.
'Morning Gloucester Harbor', 'Breaking Waves, Bass Rock' (1963).
Juried outdoor exhibitor 1964–1970; walks with Tommy in the early '60s.
A family lakeside property still held in 2022 (Tommy pays the tax).
The full family history — seven generations, from Sicily and Norway to Tuckahoe, with every fact sourced — is kept separately by the family.