1920s
Carmen Cicero as a child, c. 1929
1926
Carmen Cicero is born August 14 in Newark, NJ, to Mae (née Gelsalmina Turella) and Carmen Cicero.
1931–39
Attends Garfield Elementary School in Newark and begins lessons on the clarinet. Sets his sights on a musical career.
1939–43
Attends Barringer High School in Newark. Chosen as first clarinetist in the New Jersey All-State Orchestra. Studies in New York under Joe Allard, the legendary saxophonist and clarinetist who played with Toscanini. Allard selects a clarinet for Carmen at the Buffet clarinet factory in Paris. Carmen henceforth refers to it as his “Stradivarius” of clarinets. Forms a trio, working weekends at bar mitzvahs, weddings, and parties. Begins playing in the Catskills during summers.
1944-1945
Is drafted into the U.S. Army and becomes the leader of a seventeen-piece band that entertains the troops at Camp John Hay in the city of Baguio in the Philippines.
1947–52
Attends New Jersey State Teachers College (now Kean University) in Newark on the G.I. Bill. Meets and is influenced by John O. Gerrish, who teaches music and chorus at the College. Discovers the art department has an outstanding faculty, and decides to become a professional painter. Good friends include the painters Seymour (“Babe”) Shapiro and Maynard Sandol. Graduate studies with Robert Motherwell at Hunter College.
1926
Carmen Cicero is born August 14 in Newark, NJ, to Mae (née Gelsalmina Turella) and Carmen Cicero.
1931–39
Attends Garfield Elementary School in Newark and begins lessons on the clarinet. Sets his sights on a musical career.
1939–43
Attends Barringer High School in Newark. Chosen as first clarinetist in the New Jersey All-State Orchestra. Studies in New York under Joe Allard, the legendary saxophonist and clarinetist who played with Toscanini. Allard selects a clarinet for Carmen at the Buffet clarinet factory in Paris. Carmen henceforth refers to it as his “Stradivarius” of clarinets. Forms a trio, working weekends at bar mitzvahs, weddings, and parties. Begins playing in the Catskills during summers.
1944-1945
Is drafted into the U.S. Army and becomes the leader of a seventeen-piece band that entertains the troops at Camp John Hay in the city of Baguio in the Philippines.
1947–52
Attends New Jersey State Teachers College (now Kean University) in Newark on the G.I. Bill. Meets and is influenced by John O. Gerrish, who teaches music and chorus at the College. Discovers the art department has an outstanding faculty, and decides to become a professional painter. Good friends include the painters Seymour (“Babe”) Shapiro and Maynard Sandol. Graduate studies with Robert Motherwell at Hunter College.
1926
Carmen Cicero is born August 14 in Newark, NJ, to Mae (née Gelsalmina Turella) and Carmen Cicero.
1931–39
Attends Garfield Elementary School in Newark and begins lessons on the clarinet. Sets his sights on a musical career.
1939–43
Attends Barringer High School in Newark. Chosen as first clarinetist in the New Jersey All-State Orchestra. Studies in New York under Joe Allard, the legendary saxophonist and clarinetist who played with Toscanini. Allard selects a clarinet for Carmen at the Buffet clarinet factory in Paris. Carmen henceforth refers to it as his “Stradivarius” of clarinets. Forms a trio, working weekends at bar mitzvahs, weddings, and parties. Begins playing in the Catskills during summers.
1944-1945
Is drafted into the U.S. Army and becomes the leader of a seventeen-piece band that entertains the troops at Camp John Hay in the city of Baguio in the Philippines.
1947–52
Attends New Jersey State Teachers College (now Kean University) in Newark on the G.I. Bill. Meets and is influenced by John O. Gerrish, who teaches music and chorus at the College. Discovers the art department has an outstanding faculty, and decides to become a professional painter. Good friends include the painters Seymour (“Babe”) Shapiro and Maynard Sandol. Graduate studies with Robert Motherwell at Hunter College.
1950s
Abstraction, 1954. Oil on canvas, 41 × 573/4 inches. Newark Museum of Art
George Mueller, c. 1955
Carmen and Babe Shapiro, c. 1952
1953
Invited to participate in Young American Printmakers at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Jersey City Museum, NJ; and the Flint Institute of Arts.
1954
One of Carmen’s first Abstract Expressionist paintings, Abstraction (1954), is purchased by the Newark Museum. Around this time, meets the painter George Mueller, who becomes a good friend. Through Mueller, meets the painters Frank Roth and Fred Garbers, both students at Cooper Union.
1955
The Museum of Modern Art invites Carmen to exhibit in Recent Drawings and purchases an ink on paper. Included in the 1955 Whitney Annual (later the Biennial) and exhibitions at the Newark Museum and the Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ. Hired as art instructor at Roselle Park High School, Roselle Park, NJ. There discovers a large stockroom with stacks of paper and bottles of India ink. By his own estimate, produces more than 200 drawings during his time at the school, using the stopper from a small India ink bottle. These spontaneous ink drawings influence his early abstract paintings. His working process is influenced by Abstract Expressionism.
1956
Included in the traveling show New Talent: USA, sponsored by the American Federation of Arts, and the Annual at the Stable Gallery in New York. Also included in Abstract Art from 1910 to Today at the Newark Museum, curated by William H. Gerdts. Has his first exhibition at Louis Pollack’s Peridot Gallery on Madison Avenue in New York. Regularly exhibits at the gallery until Pollack’s death in 1969.
1957
Wins Guggenheim Fellowship while teaching at Roselle Park High School. Travels to Europe on the fellowship, spending time in France, Italy, and Spain, settling in Fornells on Minorca for a time. Visits Europe’s major museums. Spends time with childhood friend Carmine Pepe, who is studying musical composition with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Included in the 62nd American Exhibition: Paintings, Sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Corcoran Gallery, as well as exhibitions of recent acquisitions at the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim, and the Whitney.
1958
Included in the Five Newark Artists exhibition at the Newark Museum with his contemporaries George Mueller, Babe Shapiro, Frank Roth, and Maynard Sandol.
1959
Invited to show at the Corcoran Gallery, at the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York, and in International Watercolors at the Brooklyn Museum. Included in the Whitney Annual. His large oil Odradek (1959) is purchased for the Guggenheim Museum by director James Johnson Sweeney and is part of the exhibition inaugurating the museum’s Frank Lloyd Wright–designed building. Sweeney informs Carmen that Joan Miró, who is also in the exhibition, admired his painting in the show, and the two artists exchange works. Has six pieces at the Premiere Biennale de Paris, Musée d’Art Moderne.
Invited to join the art faculty at Sarah Lawrence College, where he remains until 1968. Shares an office with the art historian William Rubin. Develops a lasting friendship with Wolfgang.
1953
Invited to participate in Young American Printmakers at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Jersey City Museum, NJ; and the Flint Institute of Arts.
1954
One of Carmen’s first Abstract Expressionist paintings, Abstraction (1954), is purchased by the Newark Museum. Around this time, meets the painter George Mueller, who becomes a good friend. Through Mueller, meets the painters Frank Roth and Fred Garbers, both students at Cooper Union.
1955
The Museum of Modern Art invites Carmen to exhibit in Recent Drawings and purchases an ink on paper. Included in the 1955 Whitney Annual (later the Biennial) and exhibitions at the Newark Museum and the Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ. Hired as art instructor at Roselle Park High School, Roselle Park, NJ. There discovers a large stockroom with stacks of paper and bottles of India ink. By his own estimate, produces more than 200 drawings during his time at the school, using the stopper from a small India ink bottle. These spontaneous ink drawings influence his early abstract paintings. His working process is influenced by Abstract Expressionism.
1956
Included in the traveling show New Talent: USA, sponsored by the American Federation of Arts, and the Annual at the Stable Gallery in New York. Also included in Abstract Art from 1910 to Today at the Newark Museum, curated by William H. Gerdts. Has his first exhibition at Louis Pollack’s Peridot Gallery on Madison Avenue in New York. Regularly exhibits at the gallery until Pollack’s death in 1969.
1957
Wins Guggenheim Fellowship while teaching at Roselle Park High School. Travels to Europe on the fellowship, spending time in France, Italy, and Spain, settling in Fornells on Minorca for a time. Visits Europe’s major museums. Spends time with childhood friend Carmine Pepe, who is studying musical composition with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Included in the 62nd American Exhibition: Paintings, Sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Corcoran Gallery, as well as exhibitions of recent acquisitions at the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim, and the Whitney.
1958
Included in the Five Newark Artists exhibition at the Newark Museum with his contemporaries George Mueller, Babe Shapiro, Frank Roth, and Maynard Sandol.
1959
Invited to show at the Corcoran Gallery, at the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York, and in International Watercolors at the Brooklyn Museum. Included in the Whitney Annual. His large oil Odradek (1959) is purchased for the Guggenheim Museum by director James Johnson Sweeney and is part of the exhibition inaugurating the museum’s Frank Lloyd Wright–designed building. Sweeney informs Carmen that Joan Miró, who is also in the exhibition, admired his painting in the show, and the two artists exchange works. Has six pieces at the Premiere Biennale de Paris, Musée d’Art Moderne.
Invited to join the art faculty at Sarah Lawrence College, where he remains until 1968. Shares an office with the art historian William Rubin. Develops a lasting friendship with Wolfgang.
1953
Invited to participate in Young American Printmakers at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Jersey City Museum, NJ; and the Flint Institute of Arts.
1954
One of Carmen’s first Abstract Expressionist paintings, Abstraction (1954), is purchased by the Newark Museum. Around this time, meets the painter George Mueller, who becomes a good friend. Through Mueller, meets the painters Frank Roth and Fred Garbers, both students at Cooper Union.
1955
The Museum of Modern Art invites Carmen to exhibit in Recent Drawings and purchases an ink on paper. Included in the 1955 Whitney Annual (later the Biennial) and exhibitions at the Newark Museum and the Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ. Hired as art instructor at Roselle Park High School, Roselle Park, NJ. There discovers a large stockroom with stacks of paper and bottles of India ink. By his own estimate, produces more than 200 drawings during his time at the school, using the stopper from a small India ink bottle. These spontaneous ink drawings influence his early abstract paintings. His working process is influenced by Abstract Expressionism.
1956
Included in the traveling show New Talent: USA, sponsored by the American Federation of Arts, and the Annual at the Stable Gallery in New York. Also included in Abstract Art from 1910 to Today at the Newark Museum, curated by William H. Gerdts. Has his first exhibition at Louis Pollack’s Peridot Gallery on Madison Avenue in New York. Regularly exhibits at the gallery until Pollack’s death in 1969.
1957
Wins Guggenheim Fellowship while teaching at Roselle Park High School. Travels to Europe on the fellowship, spending time in France, Italy, and Spain, settling in Fornells on Minorca for a time. Visits Europe’s major museums. Spends time with childhood friend Carmine Pepe, who is studying musical composition with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Included in the 62nd American Exhibition: Paintings, Sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Corcoran Gallery, as well as exhibitions of recent acquisitions at the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim, and the Whitney.
1958
Included in the Five Newark Artists exhibition at the Newark Museum with his contemporaries George Mueller, Babe Shapiro, Frank Roth, and Maynard Sandol.
1959
Invited to show at the Corcoran Gallery, at the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York, and in International Watercolors at the Brooklyn Museum. Included in the Whitney Annual. His large oil Odradek (1959) is purchased for the Guggenheim Museum by director James Johnson Sweeney and is part of the exhibition inaugurating the museum’s Frank Lloyd Wright–designed building. Sweeney informs Carmen that Joan Miró, who is also in the exhibition, admired his painting in the show, and the two artists exchange works. Has six pieces at the Premiere Biennale de Paris, Musée d’Art Moderne.
Invited to join the art faculty at Sarah Lawrence College, where he remains until 1968. Shares an office with the art historian William Rubin. Develops a lasting friendship with Wolfgang.
1960s
Leonardo, 1960, oil on linen, 64 × 80 1/8 inches. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Carmen’s brothers Joe and Don and his sister Lorraine seeing him off on his first trip to Europe, 1957
Carmen Cicero (left), Susan Sontag, and art historian Philip Gould (second from right) with colleagues at Sarah Lawrence, c. 1968
1960
Cicero’s graphic work Over Squankum Hill (1960) is included in the Whitney Annual for sculpture and drawing, and is purchased by the museum. Also included in exhibitions at the Art Institute of Chicago and the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
1961
The painting Leonardo [(1960), gift of Ford Foundation Purchase Program to the Whitney Museum] is included in both the Whitney Annual and the 64th American Exhibition: Paintings, Sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago. Carmen describes this work as abstract, stating in the Whitney catalog, “If there is a subject, it is symbolic and has the same significance as a dream.” Completes the ink on paper Farewell, Abstract Expressionism (gift of the Ford Foundation Purchase Program to the Whitney Museum), which heralds a new direction in his art. Has fourth exhibition at Peridot Gallery.
Begins playing “free-form” music with such musicians as Al Senurchio and Vinnie Burke. Appears in Downbeat magazine.
1962
Included in the Whitney’s Forty Artists under Forty exhibition, which travels to the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and five other venues. Invited to participate in Drawings: Recent Acquisitions at the Museum of Modern Art. Has fifth exhibition at Peridot Gallery.
Around this time, Cicero moves to New York, living in his friend Carmine Pepe’s apartment on the Upper West Side.
1963
The Spell (1962), a painting revealing the new Figurative Expressionist style Cicero developed after his departure from Abstract Expressionism, is included in the Whitney Annual. Also shows at the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York and the Museum des 20. Jahrhunderts in Vienna. Given second Guggenheim Fellowship. Marries Carol Baldwin, a painter and printmaker, and the two travel in Europe. Countries visited include France, Belgium, Italy, Greece, and Yugoslavia. Begins to summer in Provincetown, MA. friend.
Carmen forms trio with Bill Sano on bass and Betty Lee on accordion, working club dates.
1964
Exhibits at the New York World’s Fair; the Newark Museum,; the Larry Aldrich Museum, Ridgefield, CT; and the Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, NY. Selected for “New Talent USA,” a special issue of Art in America (August 1964: 70). Has sixth exhibition at the Peridot Gallery.
Participates in The American Conscience at the New School Art Center, featuring a group of fifty-six works related to the death of President Kennedy.
1965
Participates in the Whitney Annual, as well as the Whitney’s Decade of American Paintings. Included in International Artists’ Seminar, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Teaneck, NJ; Art in Roosevelt House, New Delhi, India; Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, Champaign, IL, and the New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, NJ. Around this period Cicero is introduced to the composer and pianist Mike Melillo by Babe Shapiro. Mel Walker, an investment banker and music aficionado, becomes a close friend.
Carmen begins playing “free-form” music with Glenn Davis (drums), Roy Cumming (bass), and Mike Melillo (piano).
1966
Significant exhibitions include: the Newark Museum; the Smithsonian Institution; the New Jersey State Museum; and Drawings: USA, St. Paul Art Center, MN. Also invited to show at the Galerie Punt Vier, Rotterdam, Holland. Has seventh exhibition at Peridot Gallery and a joint show at the American Gallery.
1967
Invited to exhibit at the International Young Artists exhibition in Japan, the New Jersey State Museum, and the Newark Museum.
1968
Exhibitions include the Peridot Gallery; Galleri Promenade, Tromsø, Norway, and Galerie Simonne Stern, New Orleans.
1969
Represented in American Drawings, New School for Social Research, New York. Has eighth and last show at the Peridot Gallery.
1960
Cicero’s graphic work Over Squankum Hill (1960) is included in the Whitney Annual for sculpture and drawing, and is purchased by the museum. Also included in exhibitions at the Art Institute of Chicago and the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
1961
The painting Leonardo [(1960), gift of Ford Foundation Purchase Program to the Whitney Museum] is included in both the Whitney Annual and the 64th American Exhibition: Paintings, Sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago. Carmen describes this work as abstract, stating in the Whitney catalog, “If there is a subject, it is symbolic and has the same significance as a dream.” Completes the ink on paper Farewell, Abstract Expressionism (gift of the Ford Foundation Purchase Program to the Whitney Museum), which heralds a new direction in his art. Has fourth exhibition at Peridot Gallery.
Begins playing “free-form” music with such musicians as Al Senurchio and Vinnie Burke. Appears in Downbeat magazine.
1962
Included in the Whitney’s Forty Artists under Forty exhibition, which travels to the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and five other venues. Invited to participate in Drawings: Recent Acquisitions at the Museum of Modern Art. Has fifth exhibition at Peridot Gallery.
Around this time, Cicero moves to New York, living in his friend Carmine Pepe’s apartment on the Upper West Side.
1963
The Spell (1962), a painting revealing the new Figurative Expressionist style Cicero developed after his departure from Abstract Expressionism, is included in the Whitney Annual. Also shows at the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York and the Museum des 20. Jahrhunderts in Vienna. Given second Guggenheim Fellowship. Marries Carol Baldwin, a painter and printmaker, and the two travel in Europe. Countries visited include France, Belgium, Italy, Greece, and Yugoslavia. Begins to summer in Provincetown, MA. friend.
Carmen forms trio with Bill Sano on bass and Betty Lee on accordion, working club dates.
1964
Exhibits at the New York World’s Fair; the Newark Museum,; the Larry Aldrich Museum, Ridgefield, CT; and the Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, NY. Selected for “New Talent USA,” a special issue of Art in America (August 1964: 70). Has sixth exhibition at the Peridot Gallery.
Participates in The American Conscience at the New School Art Center, featuring a group of fifty-six works related to the death of President Kennedy.
1965
Participates in the Whitney Annual, as well as the Whitney’s Decade of American Paintings. Included in International Artists’ Seminar, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Teaneck, NJ; Art in Roosevelt House, New Delhi, India; Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, Champaign, IL, and the New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, NJ. Around this period Cicero is introduced to the composer and pianist Mike Melillo by Babe Shapiro. Mel Walker, an investment banker and music aficionado, becomes a close friend.
Carmen begins playing “free-form” music with Glenn Davis (drums), Roy Cumming (bass), and Mike Melillo (piano).
1966
Significant exhibitions include: the Newark Museum; the Smithsonian Institution; the New Jersey State Museum; and Drawings: USA, St. Paul Art Center, MN. Also invited to show at the Galerie Punt Vier, Rotterdam, Holland. Has seventh exhibition at Peridot Gallery and a joint show at the American Gallery.
1967
Invited to exhibit at the International Young Artists exhibition in Japan, the New Jersey State Museum, and the Newark Museum.
1968
Exhibitions include the Peridot Gallery; Galleri Promenade, Tromsø, Norway, and Galerie Simonne Stern, New Orleans.
1969
Represented in American Drawings, New School for Social Research, New York. Has eighth and last show at the Peridot Gallery.
1960
Cicero’s graphic work Over Squankum Hill (1960) is included in the Whitney Annual for sculpture and drawing, and is purchased by the museum. Also included in exhibitions at the Art Institute of Chicago and the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
1961
The painting Leonardo [(1960), gift of Ford Foundation Purchase Program to the Whitney Museum] is included in both the Whitney Annual and the 64th American Exhibition: Paintings, Sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago. Carmen describes this work as abstract, stating in the Whitney catalog, “If there is a subject, it is symbolic and has the same significance as a dream.” Completes the ink on paper Farewell, Abstract Expressionism (gift of the Ford Foundation Purchase Program to the Whitney Museum), which heralds a new direction in his art. Has fourth exhibition at Peridot Gallery.
Begins playing “free-form” music with such musicians as Al Senurchio and Vinnie Burke. Appears in Downbeat magazine.
1962
Included in the Whitney’s Forty Artists under Forty exhibition, which travels to the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and five other venues. Invited to participate in Drawings: Recent Acquisitions at the Museum of Modern Art. Has fifth exhibition at Peridot Gallery.
Around this time, Cicero moves to New York, living in his friend Carmine Pepe’s apartment on the Upper West Side.
1963
The Spell (1962), a painting revealing the new Figurative Expressionist style Cicero developed after his departure from Abstract Expressionism, is included in the Whitney Annual. Also shows at the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York and the Museum des 20. Jahrhunderts in Vienna. Given second Guggenheim Fellowship. Marries Carol Baldwin, a painter and printmaker, and the two travel in Europe. Countries visited include France, Belgium, Italy, Greece, and Yugoslavia. Begins to summer in Provincetown, MA. friend.
Carmen forms trio with Bill Sano on bass and Betty Lee on accordion, working club dates.
1964
Exhibits at the New York World’s Fair; the Newark Museum,; the Larry Aldrich Museum, Ridgefield, CT; and the Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, NY. Selected for “New Talent USA,” a special issue of Art in America (August 1964: 70). Has sixth exhibition at the Peridot Gallery.
Participates in The American Conscience at the New School Art Center, featuring a group of fifty-six works related to the death of President Kennedy.
1965
Participates in the Whitney Annual, as well as the Whitney’s Decade of American Paintings. Included in International Artists’ Seminar, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Teaneck, NJ; Art in Roosevelt House, New Delhi, India; Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, Champaign, IL, and the New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, NJ. Around this period Cicero is introduced to the composer and pianist Mike Melillo by Babe Shapiro. Mel Walker, an investment banker and music aficionado, becomes a close friend.
Carmen begins playing “free-form” music with Glenn Davis (drums), Roy Cumming (bass), and Mike Melillo (piano).
1966
Significant exhibitions include: the Newark Museum; the Smithsonian Institution; the New Jersey State Museum; and Drawings: USA, St. Paul Art Center, MN. Also invited to show at the Galerie Punt Vier, Rotterdam, Holland. Has seventh exhibition at Peridot Gallery and a joint show at the American Gallery.
1967
Invited to exhibit at the International Young Artists exhibition in Japan, the New Jersey State Museum, and the Newark Museum.
1968
Exhibitions include the Peridot Gallery; Galleri Promenade, Tromsø, Norway, and Galerie Simonne Stern, New Orleans.
1969
Represented in American Drawings, New School for Social Research, New York. Has eighth and last show at the Peridot Gallery.
1970
Burned Carriage House, Englewood, NJ. The Press Journal, Newark, NJ, December 9, 1971. Photograph by Rich Iceland.
Carmen in his Bowery studio, 1973
Carmen, c. 1970
Left to right: Mike Melillo, piano; Carmen Cicero, alto saxophone; Roy Cumming, bass; Glenn Davis, drums; c. 1979
1970
Louis Pollack, founder of the Peridot Gallery, dies unexpectedly, and Carmen participates in a memorial exhibition at the gallery, In Memoriam: Louis Pollack, 1921–1970.
Joins faculty of the Montclair State College Art Department as a half-time tenured professor, where he will remain until his retirement in 2001. Close colleagues include the sculptor and art historian Jonathan Silver and the painter John Czerkowicz.
1971
On December 9, Carmen’s home and studio, a converted carriage house in Englewood, NJ, burns to the ground, destroying all of his belongings, including his Buffet clarinet. Also lost are over forty works of art, among them his prized five-color crayon drawing by Miró, inscribed “With an Affectionate Greeting to Carmen Cicero.” Uninsured at the time, Carmen decides to move to Manhattan. With the loss of his clarinet, he stops playing music.
1972
Early in the year, Carmen rents a loft at 268 Bowery in Manhattan, during a period when there was a thriving art scene but streets filled with homeless alcoholics, abandoned buildings and crime. He becomes a part of the SoHo art scene. A special friend he meets at this time is Gerald Jackson, who introduces him to many black artists, poets, and musicians.
Seeking to create a new body of work, Carmen briefly experiments with the popular Hard-Edge style and exhibits some of these pieces at the newly opened Leslie Rankow Gallery. This is his first exhibition since the death of his dealer Louis Pollack
Carmen purchases the old South Truro Railroad Station in Truro, MA, on Cape Cod, which he and his wife have been renting for several summers. Spends most of his time fishing in the bay.
1973
Divorced from Carol Baldwin. Included in New Acquisition/Gifts and Loans/Selections from the Collection, Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, and the 37th Annual Midyear Show, Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH. Exhibits collages at the Rankow Gallery, New York.
1975
Second exhibition at the Leslie Rankow Gallery, which is his last exhibition there. For the next several years, he concentrates on building a new body of work in his Bowery studio that is Figurative Expressionist, drawing on earlier expressionist tendencies that first emerged in his work in the early 1960s. He comes to attention again in the New York art world with these new canvases beginning in the early 1980s.
1976
Has painting exhibition at the Summit Art Center, Summit, NJ, with his close longtime friends George Mueller and Maynard Sandol. Also shows at the Landmark Gallery, New York.
1977
During the summer, invited to become a member of the cooperative Long Point Gallery in Provincetown and has a solo exhibition there. Exhibits every summer at Long Point for twenty years, becoming close friends with the other artist-members, who include Varujan Boghosian, Fritz Bultman, Sideo Fromboluti, Rick Klauber, Budd Hopkins, Leo Manso, Robert Motherwell, Paul Resika, Judith Rothschild, Sidney Simon, Nora Speyer, and Tony Vevers. That summer in Truro, meets Mary Ellen Abell who later becomes his wife.
1978
Exhibits at the Long Point Gallery; Discovery Gallery, Upper Montclari, NJ; Gurewitsch Gallery, New York.
Through chance or Providence, someone (it may have been a favorite uncle) gives Cicero a Selmer saxophone, and he switches from clarinet to alto sax. During the summer, meets the pianist Kent Hewitt at the Weathering Heights restaurant in Provincetown. The two of them become friends and play numerous concerts together over the years.
1979
Invited to participate in the Collage: American Masters exhibition at the Montclair Art Museum, which purchases a collage. Cicero tells the curator that he is a jazz musician and offers to play a concert at the museum, which he does with the musicians Mike Melillo, Glenn Davis and Roy Cumming. Cicero once again begins to interweave his dual interests in art and music. Has solo exhibition at the Long Point Gallery.
1970
Louis Pollack, founder of the Peridot Gallery, dies unexpectedly, and Carmen participates in a memorial exhibition at the gallery, In Memoriam: Louis Pollack, 1921–1970.
Joins faculty of the Montclair State College Art Department as a half-time tenured professor, where he will remain until his retirement in 2001. Close colleagues include the sculptor and art historian Jonathan Silver and the painter John Czerkowicz.
1971
On December 9, Carmen’s home and studio, a converted carriage house in Englewood, NJ, burns to the ground, destroying all of his belongings, including his Buffet clarinet. Also lost are over forty works of art, among them his prized five-color crayon drawing by Miró, inscribed “With an Affectionate Greeting to Carmen Cicero.” Uninsured at the time, Carmen decides to move to Manhattan. With the loss of his clarinet, he stops playing music.
1972
Early in the year, Carmen rents a loft at 268 Bowery in Manhattan, during a period when there was a thriving art scene but streets filled with homeless alcoholics, abandoned buildings and crime. He becomes a part of the SoHo art scene. A special friend he meets at this time is Gerald Jackson, who introduces him to many black artists, poets, and musicians.
Seeking to create a new body of work, Carmen briefly experiments with the popular Hard-Edge style and exhibits some of these pieces at the newly opened Leslie Rankow Gallery. This is his first exhibition since the death of his dealer Louis Pollack
Carmen purchases the old South Truro Railroad Station in Truro, MA, on Cape Cod, which he and his wife have been renting for several summers. Spends most of his time fishing in the bay.
1973
Divorced from Carol Baldwin. Included in New Acquisition/Gifts and Loans/Selections from the Collection, Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, and the 37th Annual Midyear Show, Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH. Exhibits collages at the Rankow Gallery, New York.
1975
Second exhibition at the Leslie Rankow Gallery, which is his last exhibition there. For the next several years, he concentrates on building a new body of work in his Bowery studio that is Figurative Expressionist, drawing on earlier expressionist tendencies that first emerged in his work in the early 1960s. He comes to attention again in the New York art world with these new canvases beginning in the early 1980s.
1976
Has painting exhibition at the Summit Art Center, Summit, NJ, with his close longtime friends George Mueller and Maynard Sandol. Also shows at the Landmark Gallery, New York.
1977
During the summer, invited to become a member of the cooperative Long Point Gallery in Provincetown and has a solo exhibition there. Exhibits every summer at Long Point for twenty years, becoming close friends with the other artist-members, who include Varujan Boghosian, Fritz Bultman, Sideo Fromboluti, Rick Klauber, Budd Hopkins, Leo Manso, Robert Motherwell, Paul Resika, Judith Rothschild, Sidney Simon, Nora Speyer, and Tony Vevers. That summer in Truro, meets Mary Ellen Abell who later becomes his wife.
1978
Exhibits at the Long Point Gallery; Discovery Gallery, Upper Montclari, NJ; Gurewitsch Gallery, New York.
Through chance or Providence, someone (it may have been a favorite uncle) gives Cicero a Selmer saxophone, and he switches from clarinet to alto sax. During the summer, meets the pianist Kent Hewitt at the Weathering Heights restaurant in Provincetown. The two of them become friends and play numerous concerts together over the years.
1979
Invited to participate in the Collage: American Masters exhibition at the Montclair Art Museum, which purchases a collage. Cicero tells the curator that he is a jazz musician and offers to play a concert at the museum, which he does with the musicians Mike Melillo, Glenn Davis and Roy Cumming. Cicero once again begins to interweave his dual interests in art and music. Has solo exhibition at the Long Point Gallery.
1970
Louis Pollack, founder of the Peridot Gallery, dies unexpectedly, and Carmen participates in a memorial exhibition at the gallery, In Memoriam: Louis Pollack, 1921–1970.
Joins faculty of the Montclair State College Art Department as a half-time tenured professor, where he will remain until his retirement in 2001. Close colleagues include the sculptor and art historian Jonathan Silver and the painter John Czerkowicz.
1971
On December 9, Carmen’s home and studio, a converted carriage house in Englewood, NJ, burns to the ground, destroying all of his belongings, including his Buffet clarinet. Also lost are over forty works of art, among them his prized five-color crayon drawing by Miró, inscribed “With an Affectionate Greeting to Carmen Cicero.” Uninsured at the time, Carmen decides to move to Manhattan. With the loss of his clarinet, he stops playing music.
1972
Early in the year, Carmen rents a loft at 268 Bowery in Manhattan, during a period when there was a thriving art scene but streets filled with homeless alcoholics, abandoned buildings and crime. He becomes a part of the SoHo art scene. A special friend he meets at this time is Gerald Jackson, who introduces him to many black artists, poets, and musicians.
Seeking to create a new body of work, Carmen briefly experiments with the popular Hard-Edge style and exhibits some of these pieces at the newly opened Leslie Rankow Gallery. This is his first exhibition since the death of his dealer Louis Pollack
Carmen purchases the old South Truro Railroad Station in Truro, MA, on Cape Cod, which he and his wife have been renting for several summers. Spends most of his time fishing in the bay.
1973
Divorced from Carol Baldwin. Included in New Acquisition/Gifts and Loans/Selections from the Collection, Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, and the 37th Annual Midyear Show, Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH. Exhibits collages at the Rankow Gallery, New York.
1975
Second exhibition at the Leslie Rankow Gallery, which is his last exhibition there. For the next several years, he concentrates on building a new body of work in his Bowery studio that is Figurative Expressionist, drawing on earlier expressionist tendencies that first emerged in his work in the early 1960s. He comes to attention again in the New York art world with these new canvases beginning in the early 1980s.
1976
Has painting exhibition at the Summit Art Center, Summit, NJ, with his close longtime friends George Mueller and Maynard Sandol. Also shows at the Landmark Gallery, New York.
1977
During the summer, invited to become a member of the cooperative Long Point Gallery in Provincetown and has a solo exhibition there. Exhibits every summer at Long Point for twenty years, becoming close friends with the other artist-members, who include Varujan Boghosian, Fritz Bultman, Sideo Fromboluti, Rick Klauber, Budd Hopkins, Leo Manso, Robert Motherwell, Paul Resika, Judith Rothschild, Sidney Simon, Nora Speyer, and Tony Vevers. That summer in Truro, meets Mary Ellen Abell who later becomes his wife.
1978
Exhibits at the Long Point Gallery; Discovery Gallery, Upper Montclari, NJ; Gurewitsch Gallery, New York.
Through chance or Providence, someone (it may have been a favorite uncle) gives Cicero a Selmer saxophone, and he switches from clarinet to alto sax. During the summer, meets the pianist Kent Hewitt at the Weathering Heights restaurant in Provincetown. The two of them become friends and play numerous concerts together over the years.
1979
Invited to participate in the Collage: American Masters exhibition at the Montclair Art Museum, which purchases a collage. Cicero tells the curator that he is a jazz musician and offers to play a concert at the museum, which he does with the musicians Mike Melillo, Glenn Davis and Roy Cumming. Cicero once again begins to interweave his dual interests in art and music. Has solo exhibition at the Long Point Gallery.
1980s
Mary Ellen Abell and Carmen Cicero at Long Point Gallery reception, summer 1982. Photograph by Jean Hill
Carmen Cicero installation at Graham Modern Gallery, 1014 Madison Avenue, 1985
Berta Walker, Director of the Graham Modern Gallery in New York, sitting at her desk during an exhibition of Carmen’s work, c. 1983
1982
Cicero shows some of his Figurative Expressionist canvases of the 1970s and early 1980s in a single-artist exhibition at the Gracie Mansion Gallery on the Lower East Side and becomes involved in the East Village art scene with younger artists sharing similar expressionistic interests. Begins to focus more on watercolors, which began as drawings.
1983
Solo exhibition at the Art Academy of Cincinnati.
Cicero and the pianist Kent Hewitt begin playing at the Flagship restaurant in Provincetown.
1984
Cicero is invited to join the Graham Modern Gallery in New York by its director, Berta Walker, and remains with the gallery until 1990. His initial exhibition featuring his Figurative Expressionist canvases marks his first mainstream exposure to the New York art scene since the 1971 fire that destroyed his early work. Other exhibitions include the Arts Center, Jamaica, NY; Maryland Institute, College of Art, Baltimore, MD; Emotional Impact: New York School Figurative Expressionism, travelling exhibition; Art and the Law, West Publishing Company, St. Paul, MN, circulating exhibition.
1985
Second exhibition at Graham Modern Gallery. Shows at the Maurice M. Pine Free Public Library, Fair Lawn, NJ. Ingber Gallery, New York; Art and the Law, West Publishing Company, St. Paul, MN, circulating exhibition.
Cicero begins playing periodically in a jazz trio with Kent Hewitt and Marshall Wood during summers on Cape Cod.
1986
Exhibits in Life in the Big City at the Rhode Island School of Design; Cherrystone Gallery, Wellfleet, MA; Rhode Island School of Design; Short Stories, One Penn Plaza, New York.
Carmen Cicero Jazz Quartet plays at a benefit for the Fine Arts Work Center (Provincetown) held at the Oscarsson Siegeltuch and R. C. Erpf Galleries on Broadway, New York.
1987 Included in exhibitions at the Montclair Art Museum titled Expressionism Across the Generations, curated by April Kingsley; Nightworks, Krasdale Foods Gallery, Bronx; The Interior Self: Three Generations of Expressionists’ View of the Human Image, Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ; Contemporary Painting, Boca Raton Museum of Art, Boca Raton, FL; Four Artists from New York City, Goldman-Kraft, Chicago.
1989 Participates in Contemporary Provincetown: 75 Years of American Art, 1914–1989, a group exhibition at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum that travels to Los Angeles; Katzen-Brown Gallery, New York; Chandler Gallery, Wellfleet, MA.
1982
Cicero shows some of his Figurative Expressionist canvases of the 1970s and early 1980s in a single-artist exhibition at the Gracie Mansion Gallery on the Lower East Side and becomes involved in the East Village art scene with younger artists sharing similar expressionistic interests. Begins to focus more on watercolors, which began as drawings.
1983
Solo exhibition at the Art Academy of Cincinnati.
Cicero and the pianist Kent Hewitt begin playing at the Flagship restaurant in Provincetown.
1984
Cicero is invited to join the Graham Modern Gallery in New York by its director, Berta Walker, and remains with the gallery until 1990. His initial exhibition featuring his Figurative Expressionist canvases marks his first mainstream exposure to the New York art scene since the 1971 fire that destroyed his early work. Other exhibitions include the Arts Center, Jamaica, NY; Maryland Institute, College of Art, Baltimore, MD; Emotional Impact: New York School Figurative Expressionism, travelling exhibition; Art and the Law, West Publishing Company, St. Paul, MN, circulating exhibition.
1985
Second exhibition at Graham Modern Gallery. Shows at the Maurice M. Pine Free Public Library, Fair Lawn, NJ. Ingber Gallery, New York; Art and the Law, West Publishing Company, St. Paul, MN, circulating exhibition.
Cicero begins playing periodically in a jazz trio with Kent Hewitt and Marshall Wood during summers on Cape Cod.
1986
Exhibits in Life in the Big City at the Rhode Island School of Design; Cherrystone Gallery, Wellfleet, MA; Rhode Island School of Design; Short Stories, One Penn Plaza, New York.
Carmen Cicero Jazz Quartet plays at a benefit for the Fine Arts Work Center (Provincetown) held at the Oscarsson Siegeltuch and R. C. Erpf Galleries on Broadway, New York.
1987 Included in exhibitions at the Montclair Art Museum titled Expressionism Across the Generations, curated by April Kingsley; Nightworks, Krasdale Foods Gallery, Bronx; The Interior Self: Three Generations of Expressionists’ View of the Human Image, Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ; Contemporary Painting, Boca Raton Museum of Art, Boca Raton, FL; Four Artists from New York City, Goldman-Kraft, Chicago.
1989 Participates in Contemporary Provincetown: 75 Years of American Art, 1914–1989, a group exhibition at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum that travels to Los Angeles; Katzen-Brown Gallery, New York; Chandler Gallery, Wellfleet, MA.
1982
Cicero shows some of his Figurative Expressionist canvases of the 1970s and early 1980s in a single-artist exhibition at the Gracie Mansion Gallery on the Lower East Side and becomes involved in the East Village art scene with younger artists sharing similar expressionistic interests. Begins to focus more on watercolors, which began as drawings.
1983
Solo exhibition at the Art Academy of Cincinnati.
Cicero and the pianist Kent Hewitt begin playing at the Flagship restaurant in Provincetown.
1984
Cicero is invited to join the Graham Modern Gallery in New York by its director, Berta Walker, and remains with the gallery until 1990. His initial exhibition featuring his Figurative Expressionist canvases marks his first mainstream exposure to the New York art scene since the 1971 fire that destroyed his early work. Other exhibitions include the Arts Center, Jamaica, NY; Maryland Institute, College of Art, Baltimore, MD; Emotional Impact: New York School Figurative Expressionism, travelling exhibition; Art and the Law, West Publishing Company, St. Paul, MN, circulating exhibition.
1985
Second exhibition at Graham Modern Gallery. Shows at the Maurice M. Pine Free Public Library, Fair Lawn, NJ. Ingber Gallery, New York; Art and the Law, West Publishing Company, St. Paul, MN, circulating exhibition.
Cicero begins playing periodically in a jazz trio with Kent Hewitt and Marshall Wood during summers on Cape Cod.
1986
Exhibits in Life in the Big City at the Rhode Island School of Design; Cherrystone Gallery, Wellfleet, MA; Rhode Island School of Design; Short Stories, One Penn Plaza, New York.
Carmen Cicero Jazz Quartet plays at a benefit for the Fine Arts Work Center (Provincetown) held at the Oscarsson Siegeltuch and R. C. Erpf Galleries on Broadway, New York.
1987 Included in exhibitions at the Montclair Art Museum titled Expressionism Across the Generations, curated by April Kingsley; Nightworks, Krasdale Foods Gallery, Bronx; The Interior Self: Three Generations of Expressionists’ View of the Human Image, Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ; Contemporary Painting, Boca Raton Museum of Art, Boca Raton, FL; Four Artists from New York City, Goldman-Kraft, Chicago.
1989 Participates in Contemporary Provincetown: 75 Years of American Art, 1914–1989, a group exhibition at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum that travels to Los Angeles; Katzen-Brown Gallery, New York; Chandler Gallery, Wellfleet, MA.
1990s
Long Point Artists, 1990. Front row, l-r: Sideo Fromboluti, Nora Speyer, Varujan Boghosian, Edward Giobbi, Paul Resika, Carmen Cicero, Tony Vevers, Robert Motherwell, Judith Rothschild, Budd Hopkins, Sidney Simon. Photographed by Joel Meyerowitz
Carmen and Wolfgang Spitzer, Truro, c. 1990
Carmen and Mary outside the First Congregational Parish of Truro, Massachusetts, on their wedding day, July 29, 1995
1990
Joins the June Kelly Gallery in New York, the beginning of a long and fruitful relationship. Begins series of canvases he comes to call his Visionary works. Exhibits at Long Point Gallery National Academy of Design; Florida International Art Museum, University Park, Miami, FL; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; Art and the Law, West Publishing Company, St. Paul, MN, circulating exhibition.
Carmen and Mary Abell go to Italy for a month following her graduation with a master’s degree in Arts and Humanities from New York University. They visit Rome, Florence, and also Macerata, where Mike Melillo has taken up residency. They drive up the Adriatic coast to Venice, a city they come to love. Another high point of the trip is Sicily, particularly the Greek ruins.
1991
Admitted as an associate member by the National Academy of Design, New York. Granted an MFA by Montclair State University and honored with a solo show at the college gallery entitled Improvisations in Painting and Music. Included in exhibitions at the Cape Cod Museum of Art, Dennis, MA and the Belltable Arts Center, Limerick, Ireland and a solo show at The James Howe Gallery, Kean College, Union, NJ.
1992
Included in the exhibition Artists–New York, City Arts, Marine Midland Bank, SoHo, New York along with shows at the National Academy of Design and Long Point Gallery.
1993
Admitted as an academician by the National Academy of Design and begins to regularly exhibit in their annual shows. Exhibitions include Stuart Levy Gallery, New York and the Provincetown Art Association and Museum. Solo exhibition at the June Kelly Gallery and group shows at Stuart Levy Gallery, New York and Provincetown Art Association and Museum.
1994
Invited to participate in Italian American Artists, 1945–1968: A Limited Survey, Works on Paper at the Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Gallery, Hunter College, and Krasdale Foods Art Gallery, White Plains, NY. Included in exhibitions at the Anderson Gallery, Buffalo, NY and Sardoni Art Gallery, Wilkes University.
1995
Carmen’s acrylic painting The Blue Line wins the Mikhail and Ekateryna Shatalov Prize for “a romantic realist landscape executed in a free manner” at the 170th annual exhibition of the National Academy of Design. Solo exhibition at the June Kelly Gallery. Group exhibition at Long Point Gallery.
Carmen and Mary are married on July 29 at the First Episcopal Parish Church in Truro, MA.
1996
Exhibitions include Long Point Gallery; Jenkins Johnson Gallery, San Francisco; Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock; Pratt Institute, Brooklyn.
1997
Wins Purchase Prize, American Academy of Arts and Letters. Cicero’s watercolor Self-Portrait is selected by curator Will Barnet for The Artist’s Eye at the National Academy of Design Museum. Group exhibitions at the Housatonic Museum of Art, Bridgeport, CT, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York.
1998
Solo exhibitions at June Kelly Gallery and Jenkins Johnson Gallery, San Francisco. Group shows at Silvermine Guild Galleries, New Canaan, CT; Cape Museum of Fine Arts, Dennis, MA; Nardin Gallery, New York; The Art Show: Art Dealers Association of America, Park Avenue Armory, New York.
1999 Exhibits at the Historisches Museum der Stadt Wien, Austria, and Passage de Retz, Paris; The Equitable Gallery, New York; State University of New York Art Museum, Binghamton.
1990
Joins the June Kelly Gallery in New York, the beginning of a long and fruitful relationship. Begins series of canvases he comes to call his Visionary works. Exhibits at Long Point Gallery National Academy of Design; Florida International Art Museum, University Park, Miami, FL; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; Art and the Law, West Publishing Company, St. Paul, MN, circulating exhibition.
Carmen and Mary Abell go to Italy for a month following her graduation with a master’s degree in Arts and Humanities from New York University. They visit Rome, Florence, and also Macerata, where Mike Melillo has taken up residency. They drive up the Adriatic coast to Venice, a city they come to love. Another high point of the trip is Sicily, particularly the Greek ruins.
1991
Admitted as an associate member by the National Academy of Design, New York. Granted an MFA by Montclair State University and honored with a solo show at the college gallery entitled Improvisations in Painting and Music. Included in exhibitions at the Cape Cod Museum of Art, Dennis, MA and the Belltable Arts Center, Limerick, Ireland and a solo show at The James Howe Gallery, Kean College, Union, NJ.
1992
Included in the exhibition Artists–New York, City Arts, Marine Midland Bank, SoHo, New York along with shows at the National Academy of Design and Long Point Gallery.
1993
Admitted as an academician by the National Academy of Design and begins to regularly exhibit in their annual shows. Exhibitions include Stuart Levy Gallery, New York and the Provincetown Art Association and Museum. Solo exhibition at the June Kelly Gallery and group shows at Stuart Levy Gallery, New York and Provincetown Art Association and Museum.
1994
Invited to participate in Italian American Artists, 1945–1968: A Limited Survey, Works on Paper at the Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Gallery, Hunter College, and Krasdale Foods Art Gallery, White Plains, NY. Included in exhibitions at the Anderson Gallery, Buffalo, NY and Sardoni Art Gallery, Wilkes University.
1995
Carmen’s acrylic painting The Blue Line wins the Mikhail and Ekateryna Shatalov Prize for “a romantic realist landscape executed in a free manner” at the 170th annual exhibition of the National Academy of Design. Solo exhibition at the June Kelly Gallery. Group exhibition at Long Point Gallery.
Carmen and Mary are married on July 29 at the First Episcopal Parish Church in Truro, MA.
1996
Exhibitions include Long Point Gallery; Jenkins Johnson Gallery, San Francisco; Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock; Pratt Institute, Brooklyn.
1997
Wins Purchase Prize, American Academy of Arts and Letters. Cicero’s watercolor Self-Portrait is selected by curator Will Barnet for The Artist’s Eye at the National Academy of Design Museum. Group exhibitions at the Housatonic Museum of Art, Bridgeport, CT, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York.
1998
Solo exhibitions at June Kelly Gallery and Jenkins Johnson Gallery, San Francisco. Group shows at Silvermine Guild Galleries, New Canaan, CT; Cape Museum of Fine Arts, Dennis, MA; Nardin Gallery, New York; The Art Show: Art Dealers Association of America, Park Avenue Armory, New York.
1999 Exhibits at the Historisches Museum der Stadt Wien, Austria, and Passage de Retz, Paris; The Equitable Gallery, New York; State University of New York Art Museum, Binghamton.
1990
Joins the June Kelly Gallery in New York, the beginning of a long and fruitful relationship. Begins series of canvases he comes to call his Visionary works. Exhibits at Long Point Gallery National Academy of Design; Florida International Art Museum, University Park, Miami, FL; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; Art and the Law, West Publishing Company, St. Paul, MN, circulating exhibition.
Carmen and Mary Abell go to Italy for a month following her graduation with a master’s degree in Arts and Humanities from New York University. They visit Rome, Florence, and also Macerata, where Mike Melillo has taken up residency. They drive up the Adriatic coast to Venice, a city they come to love. Another high point of the trip is Sicily, particularly the Greek ruins.
1991
Admitted as an associate member by the National Academy of Design, New York. Granted an MFA by Montclair State University and honored with a solo show at the college gallery entitled Improvisations in Painting and Music. Included in exhibitions at the Cape Cod Museum of Art, Dennis, MA and the Belltable Arts Center, Limerick, Ireland and a solo show at The James Howe Gallery, Kean College, Union, NJ.
1992
Included in the exhibition Artists–New York, City Arts, Marine Midland Bank, SoHo, New York along with shows at the National Academy of Design and Long Point Gallery.
1993
Admitted as an academician by the National Academy of Design and begins to regularly exhibit in their annual shows. Exhibitions include Stuart Levy Gallery, New York and the Provincetown Art Association and Museum. Solo exhibition at the June Kelly Gallery and group shows at Stuart Levy Gallery, New York and Provincetown Art Association and Museum.
1994
Invited to participate in Italian American Artists, 1945–1968: A Limited Survey, Works on Paper at the Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Gallery, Hunter College, and Krasdale Foods Art Gallery, White Plains, NY. Included in exhibitions at the Anderson Gallery, Buffalo, NY and Sardoni Art Gallery, Wilkes University.
1995
Carmen’s acrylic painting The Blue Line wins the Mikhail and Ekateryna Shatalov Prize for “a romantic realist landscape executed in a free manner” at the 170th annual exhibition of the National Academy of Design. Solo exhibition at the June Kelly Gallery. Group exhibition at Long Point Gallery.
Carmen and Mary are married on July 29 at the First Episcopal Parish Church in Truro, MA.
1996
Exhibitions include Long Point Gallery; Jenkins Johnson Gallery, San Francisco; Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock; Pratt Institute, Brooklyn.
1997
Wins Purchase Prize, American Academy of Arts and Letters. Cicero’s watercolor Self-Portrait is selected by curator Will Barnet for The Artist’s Eye at the National Academy of Design Museum. Group exhibitions at the Housatonic Museum of Art, Bridgeport, CT, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York.
1998
Solo exhibitions at June Kelly Gallery and Jenkins Johnson Gallery, San Francisco. Group shows at Silvermine Guild Galleries, New Canaan, CT; Cape Museum of Fine Arts, Dennis, MA; Nardin Gallery, New York; The Art Show: Art Dealers Association of America, Park Avenue Armory, New York.
1999 Exhibits at the Historisches Museum der Stadt Wien, Austria, and Passage de Retz, Paris; The Equitable Gallery, New York; State University of New York Art Museum, Binghamton.
2000s
L-R: Kent Hewitt (piano), Carmen and Marshall Wood (bass) at a concert at the Wellfleet Public Library, c. 2000
Favorite canal on the Dorsoduro, Venice, 2007
Carmen Cicero and Motherwell, c. 1990
2000
A survey of Cicero’s large Figurative Expressionist and Visionary works is held at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum. The artist gives a lecture there on the commonalities among the visual arts, music, and literature—a subject that has become increasingly of interest to him based on his own experience as a visual artist and musician. Other solo exhibitions at Berta Walker Gallery, Provincetown and the Jenkins Johnson Gallery, San Francisco.
2001
Carmen retires from Montclair State University. Carmen and Mary spend time in Venice. Mary completes her PhD in American art history at the City University of New York Graduate Center. Solo show at June Kelly Gallery. Other exhibitions include: National Academy of Design; The Art Show: Art Dealers Association of America, Park Avenue Armory, New York; Berta Walker Gallery, Provincetown; Hammond Museum & Japanese Stroll Garden, North Salem, NY.
2002
Cicero is given a Visiting Artist residency at the American Academy in Rome during the spring, producing many drawings, a practice that he continues with renewed enthusiasm. Solo show at Berta Walker Gallery, Provincetown. Groups shows at National Academy of Design, New York and The Art Show: Art Dealers Association of America, Park Avenue Armory, New York; Navy Pier Exhibition, Chicago.
2003
Exhibits at Navy Pier Exhibition, Chicago.
2004
Solo exhibition at June Kelly Gallery and in Navy Pier Exhibition, Chicago.
2005
Exhibits Art Chicago in The Park, Chicago.
2006
Exhibitions include Art Chicago at Merchandise Mart, Chicago; and Ogunquit Museum of American Art, Ogunquit, ME.
2007
Wins the Lee Krasner Award for lifetime achievement from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation. Watercolor show at June Kelly Gallery. Also exhibits watercolors at Cape Cod Museum of Art, Dennis, MA. Spends time in Venice and takes night shots with black-and-white film that he uses as references for watercolors.
Records a CD titled Play Me a Sad Song with Kent Hewitt (piano), Artie Cabral (drums), Marshall Wood (bass).
2008
Exhibits at ArtHamptons, Bridgehampton, NY.
2009
Group show at June Kelly Gallery.
Continues playing with various musicians, including the pianist Ed Higgins, at the Bishop’s Terrace restaurant in Brewster, MA.
2000
A survey of Cicero’s large Figurative Expressionist and Visionary works is held at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum. The artist gives a lecture there on the commonalities among the visual arts, music, and literature—a subject that has become increasingly of interest to him based on his own experience as a visual artist and musician. Other solo exhibitions at Berta Walker Gallery, Provincetown and the Jenkins Johnson Gallery, San Francisco.
2001
Carmen retires from Montclair State University. Carmen and Mary spend time in Venice. Mary completes her PhD in American art history at the City University of New York Graduate Center. Solo show at June Kelly Gallery. Other exhibitions include: National Academy of Design; The Art Show: Art Dealers Association of America, Park Avenue Armory, New York; Berta Walker Gallery, Provincetown; Hammond Museum & Japanese Stroll Garden, North Salem, NY.
2002
Cicero is given a Visiting Artist residency at the American Academy in Rome during the spring, producing many drawings, a practice that he continues with renewed enthusiasm. Solo show at Berta Walker Gallery, Provincetown. Groups shows at National Academy of Design, New York and The Art Show: Art Dealers Association of America, Park Avenue Armory, New York; Navy Pier Exhibition, Chicago.
2003
Exhibits at Navy Pier Exhibition, Chicago.
2004
Solo exhibition at June Kelly Gallery and in Navy Pier Exhibition, Chicago.
2005
Exhibits Art Chicago in The Park, Chicago.
2006
Exhibitions include Art Chicago at Merchandise Mart, Chicago; and Ogunquit Museum of American Art, Ogunquit, ME.
2007
Wins the Lee Krasner Award for lifetime achievement from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation. Watercolor show at June Kelly Gallery. Also exhibits watercolors at Cape Cod Museum of Art, Dennis, MA. Spends time in Venice and takes night shots with black-and-white film that he uses as references for watercolors.
Records a CD titled Play Me a Sad Song with Kent Hewitt (piano), Artie Cabral (drums), Marshall Wood (bass).
2008
Exhibits at ArtHamptons, Bridgehampton, NY.
2009
Group show at June Kelly Gallery.
Continues playing with various musicians, including the pianist Ed Higgins, at the Bishop’s Terrace restaurant in Brewster, MA.
2000
A survey of Cicero’s large Figurative Expressionist and Visionary works is held at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum. The artist gives a lecture there on the commonalities among the visual arts, music, and literature—a subject that has become increasingly of interest to him based on his own experience as a visual artist and musician. Other solo exhibitions at Berta Walker Gallery, Provincetown and the Jenkins Johnson Gallery, San Francisco.
2001
Carmen retires from Montclair State University. Carmen and Mary spend time in Venice. Mary completes her PhD in American art history at the City University of New York Graduate Center. Solo show at June Kelly Gallery. Other exhibitions include: National Academy of Design; The Art Show: Art Dealers Association of America, Park Avenue Armory, New York; Berta Walker Gallery, Provincetown; Hammond Museum & Japanese Stroll Garden, North Salem, NY.
2002
Cicero is given a Visiting Artist residency at the American Academy in Rome during the spring, producing many drawings, a practice that he continues with renewed enthusiasm. Solo show at Berta Walker Gallery, Provincetown. Groups shows at National Academy of Design, New York and The Art Show: Art Dealers Association of America, Park Avenue Armory, New York; Navy Pier Exhibition, Chicago.
2003
Exhibits at Navy Pier Exhibition, Chicago.
2004
Solo exhibition at June Kelly Gallery and in Navy Pier Exhibition, Chicago.
2005
Exhibits Art Chicago in The Park, Chicago.
2006
Exhibitions include Art Chicago at Merchandise Mart, Chicago; and Ogunquit Museum of American Art, Ogunquit, ME.
2007
Wins the Lee Krasner Award for lifetime achievement from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation. Watercolor show at June Kelly Gallery. Also exhibits watercolors at Cape Cod Museum of Art, Dennis, MA. Spends time in Venice and takes night shots with black-and-white film that he uses as references for watercolors.
Records a CD titled Play Me a Sad Song with Kent Hewitt (piano), Artie Cabral (drums), Marshall Wood (bass).
2008
Exhibits at ArtHamptons, Bridgehampton, NY.
2009
Group show at June Kelly Gallery.
Continues playing with various musicians, including the pianist Ed Higgins, at the Bishop’s Terrace restaurant in Brewster, MA.
2010s
Loft jazz party following Carmen’s exhibition at the June Kelly Gallery called In the Still of the Night. Front row, l-r: Carolyn Hartsfield, vocalist, and Kent Hewitt, pianist. Back row, l-r: Donna Bryne, vocalist; Gerald Jackson, artist; Mary; Carmen; Julie McWilliams, painter; George Mueller, painter; Barbara Reese; April 9, 2010
Photograph of Carmen’s painting Odradek on the opening night of the Guggenheim exhibition Art of Another Kind, June 8, 2012
2010
Important exhibition of Visionary works at June Kelly Gallery called In the Still of the Night. Enjoys having jazz parties in his loft after openings. Builds a studio in Truro.
2012
The painting Odradek (1959) is included in the major exhibition Art of Another Kind: International Abstraction 1949–1960 at the Guggenheim Museum. Included in Long Point: An Artists’ Place (1977–1998) at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum (PAAM). Honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from PAAM. Single-artist exhibition at PAAM of Cicero’s Visionary works.
2013
The Art of Carmen Cicero is published by Schiffer, presenting an overview of his oeuvre.
2014
The painting Odradek (1959) included in important exhibition From the Guggenheim Collection to the Cobra Museum Amstelveen: International Abstraction, 1949-1960, Cobra Museum, Amstelveen, Netherlands.
2015
An important show at the June Kelly Gallery, Early Works: 1970s–1980s.
2016
Wins Jacob Lawrence Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Records new CD titled Friends with Kent Hewitt (piano), Marshall Wood (bass), Jim Guin (drums), and Donna Byrne (vocals).
2017
Group exhibitions at June Kelly Gallery and Art Complex Museum, Duxbury, MA.
2019
Featured in Artists on the Bowery Part I: Carmen Cicero and Alan Steele, Westwood Gallery, New
York. Invited to participate in Creative Couples exhibition at the Berta Walker Gallery, Provincetown.
2010
Important exhibition of Visionary works at June Kelly Gallery called In the Still of the Night. Enjoys having jazz parties in his loft after openings. Builds a studio in Truro.
2012
The painting Odradek (1959) is included in the major exhibition Art of Another Kind: International Abstraction 1949–1960 at the Guggenheim Museum. Included in Long Point: An Artists’ Place (1977–1998) at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum (PAAM). Honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from PAAM. Single-artist exhibition at PAAM of Cicero’s Visionary works.
2013
The Art of Carmen Cicero is published by Schiffer, presenting an overview of his oeuvre.
2014
The painting Odradek (1959) included in important exhibition From the Guggenheim Collection to the Cobra Museum Amstelveen: International Abstraction, 1949-1960, Cobra Museum, Amstelveen, Netherlands.
2015
An important show at the June Kelly Gallery, Early Works: 1970s–1980s.
2016
Wins Jacob Lawrence Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Records new CD titled Friends with Kent Hewitt (piano), Marshall Wood (bass), Jim Guin (drums), and Donna Byrne (vocals).
2017
Group exhibitions at June Kelly Gallery and Art Complex Museum, Duxbury, MA.
2019
Featured in Artists on the Bowery Part I: Carmen Cicero and Alan Steele, Westwood Gallery, New
York. Invited to participate in Creative Couples exhibition at the Berta Walker Gallery, Provincetown.
2010
Important exhibition of Visionary works at June Kelly Gallery called In the Still of the Night. Enjoys having jazz parties in his loft after openings. Builds a studio in Truro.
2012
The painting Odradek (1959) is included in the major exhibition Art of Another Kind: International Abstraction 1949–1960 at the Guggenheim Museum. Included in Long Point: An Artists’ Place (1977–1998) at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum (PAAM). Honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from PAAM. Single-artist exhibition at PAAM of Cicero’s Visionary works.
2013
The Art of Carmen Cicero is published by Schiffer, presenting an overview of his oeuvre.
2014
The painting Odradek (1959) included in important exhibition From the Guggenheim Collection to the Cobra Museum Amstelveen: International Abstraction, 1949-1960, Cobra Museum, Amstelveen, Netherlands.
2015
An important show at the June Kelly Gallery, Early Works: 1970s–1980s.
2016
Wins Jacob Lawrence Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Records new CD titled Friends with Kent Hewitt (piano), Marshall Wood (bass), Jim Guin (drums), and Donna Byrne (vocals).
2017
Group exhibitions at June Kelly Gallery and Art Complex Museum, Duxbury, MA.
2019
Featured in Artists on the Bowery Part I: Carmen Cicero and Alan Steele, Westwood Gallery, New
York. Invited to participate in Creative Couples exhibition at the Berta Walker Gallery, Provincetown.
2020s
(L-R): Carmen, David Fabricant (Publisher, Abbeville Press), David Ebony. Bowery loft, November 2023. Photograph by Mary Ellen Abell
Carmen in his Bowery studio. Photo by Joshua Charow
2020
Exhibition of large-scale recent paintings at June Kelly Gallery titled The Human Condition.
2021
Single-artist installation of watercolors at June Kelly Gallery.
2022
Single-artist exhibition in the June Kelly Gallery booth at The Art Show, sponsored by the Art Dealers Association of American, Park Avenue Armory, New York. A double-page reproduction of Carmen’s painting New Yorker Talking to Himself (2019) is chosen to advertise the exhibition in the Arts section of the New York Times.
2023
Invited to Mel Leipzig and Friends, Provincetown Art Association and Museum.
2024
Participates in shows at the Westwood Gallery, New York, titled Loft Law: The Last of New York City’s Original Artist Lofts and in Provincetown at the Berta Walker Gallery. Participates in the annual exhibition of members of the National Academy of Design and wins a prize for Satan Transitioning.
Five drawings from the 1960s sent to be photographed are stolen from the stairwell of Cicero’s building on the Bowery. Police report it as grand larceny. Among the stolen works is Dark Sails, 1964, which was particularly compelling to Carmen, who hadn’t seen it in years. He draws another, larger version from a photograph.
Publication of book titled Carmen Cicero’s Drawings and Watercolors: Tales of Danger, Intrigue and Humor (Abbeville) and exhibition at June Kelly Gallery devoted to drawings and watercolors from throughout Cicero’s career.
2020
Exhibition of large-scale recent paintings at June Kelly Gallery titled The Human Condition.
2021
Single-artist installation of watercolors at June Kelly Gallery.
2022
Single-artist exhibition in the June Kelly Gallery booth at The Art Show, sponsored by the Art Dealers Association of American, Park Avenue Armory, New York. A double-page reproduction of Carmen’s painting New Yorker Talking to Himself (2019) is chosen to advertise the exhibition in the Arts section of the New York Times.
2023
Invited to Mel Leipzig and Friends, Provincetown Art Association and Museum.
2024
Participates in shows at the Westwood Gallery, New York, titled Loft Law: The Last of New York City’s Original Artist Lofts and in Provincetown at the Berta Walker Gallery. Participates in the annual exhibition of members of the National Academy of Design and wins a prize for Satan Transitioning.
Five drawings from the 1960s sent to be photographed are stolen from the stairwell of Cicero’s building on the Bowery. Police report it as grand larceny. Among the stolen works is Dark Sails, 1964, which was particularly compelling to Carmen, who hadn’t seen it in years. He draws another, larger version from a photograph.
Publication of book titled Carmen Cicero’s Drawings and Watercolors: Tales of Danger, Intrigue and Humor (Abbeville) and exhibition at June Kelly Gallery devoted to drawings and watercolors from throughout Cicero’s career.
2020
Exhibition of large-scale recent paintings at June Kelly Gallery titled The Human Condition.
2021
Single-artist installation of watercolors at June Kelly Gallery.
2022
Single-artist exhibition in the June Kelly Gallery booth at The Art Show, sponsored by the Art Dealers Association of American, Park Avenue Armory, New York. A double-page reproduction of Carmen’s painting New Yorker Talking to Himself (2019) is chosen to advertise the exhibition in the Arts section of the New York Times.
2023
Invited to Mel Leipzig and Friends, Provincetown Art Association and Museum.
2024
Participates in shows at the Westwood Gallery, New York, titled Loft Law: The Last of New York City’s Original Artist Lofts and in Provincetown at the Berta Walker Gallery. Participates in the annual exhibition of members of the National Academy of Design and wins a prize for Satan Transitioning.
Five drawings from the 1960s sent to be photographed are stolen from the stairwell of Cicero’s building on the Bowery. Police report it as grand larceny. Among the stolen works is Dark Sails, 1964, which was particularly compelling to Carmen, who hadn’t seen it in years. He draws another, larger version from a photograph.
Publication of book titled Carmen Cicero’s Drawings and Watercolors: Tales of Danger, Intrigue and Humor (Abbeville) and exhibition at June Kelly Gallery devoted to drawings and watercolors from throughout Cicero’s career.
The contents of this site, including all images and text, are for educational and non-commercial use only and are the sole property of Carmen Cicero. The contents of this site may not be reproduced in any form without written permission from Carmen Cicero. For all image requests and reproduction rights, please contact hello@carmencicero.com.
© 2024 Carmen Cicero. All Rights Reserved. New York City, NY.
Website designed & developed by
The contents of this site, including all images and text, are for educational and non-commercial use only and are the sole property of Carmen Cicero. The contents of this site may not be reproduced in any form without written permission from Carmen Cicero. For all image requests and reproduction rights, please contact hello@carmencicero.com.
© 2024 Carmen Cicero. All Rights Reserved. New York City, NY.
Website designed & developed by
© 2024 Carmen Cicero. All Rights Reserved. New York City, NY.
Website designed & developed by
