Fasanella, 1992

Born in the Bronx on Labor Day in 1914 to recent Italian immigrants, the self-taught American painter Ralph Fasanella is known today for his bustling tableaux of working-class city life. His exuberant scenes of baseball stadiums, street festivals, and labor strikes are rich with detail and symbolism pulled from his life and times. In this 1992 documentary, Fasanella speaks to a classroom of high school students; revisits his childhood neighborhood of Greenwich Village; recalls his early days working as a garment worker and truck driver; his later successes as a union organizer; and has his painting, “Family Supper” (1972), put on permanent display in the Great Hall at Ellis Island. One of the most socially engaged artists of his generation, Fasanella is a visionary whose understudied body of work shows how art can propose a better world by standing in solidarity with all members of society. A film by Glen Pearcy. Narrated by Julian Bond.

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