Back in March, we told you about a portrait that New York Medical College in Valhalla had received of its most prominent founder, poet, editor and abolitionist William Cullen Bryant. Now NYMC is the recipient of “Strolling Through Tibbetts Park in Yonkers,” an abstract mixed media on canvas from the 1980s by Yonkers-based artist Biagio “Gino” Civale.
Coming of age in Italy during World War II, Civale attended art academies in Rome, Florence, Paris and Sardinia as well as New York University and Purchase College. His works appear in colleges, libraries, galleries and exhibits worldwide.
“I have so much artwork in various public buildings around Westchester, hospitals, social and senior centers, and I have so much work that I was happy to share,” he said in an email interview. “I overhead in a conversation that the medical college did not have any artwork on its walls, so I decided to be proactive, and thanks to (Westfair publisher and NYMC board member Dee DelBello)… it was easily arranged.
“I am happy to have donated it and hope that the students will derive some pleasure from it.”
Civale”™s wartime experience led him to witness “some atrocious scenes, while I was quite young.” Many of his works have captured the suffering of others in world events, whether it be refugee children during the Vietnam War era or, most recently, the bloodshed in Ukraine (both depicted here.
Said Civale: “I feel that we should all be thinking about freedom being attacked.”
For more, visit civale.org and nymc.edu. And check out our story on New York Medical College”™s June 26 golf tournament and brunch at St. Andrew”™s Golf Club in Hastings on Hudson here.
