Anthony Mastromatteo (Born 1970)
anthony_mastromatteo_tm1016_benadryl_caplet.jpg
About your purchase...
  • Purchases outside the continental US - please call for shipping rates

  • New York state residents are charged sales tax

 

The work(s) of art is/are sold by the Seller and purchased by the buyer upon the following terms and conditions:

1. Except as otherwise provided herein or elsewhere agreed in writing, payment in full is due and payable on the date of the invoice.

2. This is an invoice only. Title to the work(s) of art purchased shall not pass until payment in full has been received.

3. All applicable sales taxes have been charged on this transaction. The payment and remittance of use tax is the Buyer’s obligation. Seller reserves the right to collect out-of-state sales taxes from the buyer after the sale if seller becomes assessed with them.

4. The Buyer’s sole remedy for breach of any implied or express warranty therein shall be an action for rescission and, in any event, the absolute limit of the Seller’s liability and responsibility hereunder shall under no circumstances exceed the total sales price and seller shall not be responsible for any special, incidental, or consequential damages or lost profits.

5. A non-exclusive right to reproduce the work(s) of art is reserved by the Seller.

6. Risk or loss of the work(s) of art purchased shall pass to the Buyer upon delivery by the Seller to the address specified by the Buyer.

7. In accordance with the UCC and the New York Arts and Cultural Affairs Law, Seller guarantees that the work(s) of art purchased is by the named artist. If such work(s) proves not to be of such authorship as described, Seller will accept the return of the work(s) and return the sales price in full.

8. Any disputes arising out of this sale shall be governed by the laws of the State of New York without regard to its choice of law provisions, and shall be submitted to the American Arbitration Association for an arbitration to be held before a single arbitrator in New York City, New York. The prevailing party in such arbitration shall be entitled to its costs and attorneys’ fees in connection with such arbitration proceeding, and the costs of enforcement and collection of any resulting arbitral award.

EXCEPT FOR THE WARRANTY OF AUTHENTICITY SET FORTH ABOVE, NO WARRANTIES OR AGREEMENTS, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, HAVE BEEN MADE BY THE SELLER.

SOLD
Anthony Mastromatteo
(Born 1970)
Benadryl Caplet
Oil on canvas-panel
4 x 4 inches
Signed
Provenance
Anthony Mastromatteo

Rehs Contemporary Galleries, Inc., New York City
BIOGRAPHY
20170202_091439.jpg

Looking at Anthony Mastromatteo’s childhood in retrospect, it’s unlikely that anyone would have imagined that he would grow up to become an artist. Born on January 19, 1970 in suburban Akron, Ohio, Mastromatteo enjoyed a pleasant childhood. He was the oldest of three sons and excelled during these years at both soccer, receiving first team All-American honors during his senior season, and school, graduating at the top of his class at the local Jesuit high school.

What was not present was any interest in the arts until his senior year in high school. At that point, he and some friends made a trip to the Cleveland Museum of Art where he saw J. M. W. Turner’s painting, The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, 16 October 1834 (1835). According to Mastromatteo, “It made sense to me.” In the fall of 1988, he left Ohio for Princeton University where he enrolled in an art history class, Neoclassicism to Impressionism, because he had been impressed by that Turner painting and wanted to understand exactly what that earlier experience suggested.

One of the assignments in the art history class was a term paper about a painting that the student could see in person. Mastromatteo decided to travel to the Fogg Museum (now part of the Harvard Art Museums) to see Vincent van Gogh’s Self-Portrait Dedicated to Paul Gauguin (1888), often called the artist’s Buddhist self-portrait. [i] Again, Mastromatteo recognized a sense of connection, a sense of self, similar to what he had felt when he first saw Turner’s painting in Cleveland. This encounter with art, and the power of painting to establish an emotional association across time, led Mastromatteo to major in art history under the guidance of James Marrow. His senior thesis was a study of another self-portrait, Albrecht Dürer’s Self-Portrait of 1500 (Alte Pinakothek, Munich).

After graduation in 1992, the young art historian set out for New York city where he worked at Christie’s for the next five years. The world of the international auction house proved to be an education not only in the art market, but also in the vast scope of art history itself. As Mastromatteo notes, “art history is not just what you learn in class.” Surrounded by innumerable works of art, it was obvious that both the range of quality and artists was prodigious.

Gradually, he began to consider the possibility of becoming an artist himself, and in the fall of 1996, he enrolled in classes at the Art Students League. His initial focus was on drawing and figurative painting. Because of his knowledge of art history and his exposure to the boundless array of paintings available on the art market, Mastromatteo was particularly conscious of questions about how representational art varied over time. The Pre-Raphaelite art of the nineteenth century, which was frequently seen at Christie’s auctions in 1990s, posed intriguing questions about the relationship between medievalism and modernism. Just as Dürer strove to reflect the textures, colors and forms of his own time, the Pre-Raphaelite painters paid attention to creating a system of representation that reflected their tangible observation of the world. The inclusion of medieval costumes and narratives, however, referenced an imaginary evocation of an earlier era rather than the daily reality of their lives. This apparent contradiction led to the question of how to define realism as a system of symbols in contemporary terms. As Mastromatteo comments now, “Reality demands that I pay attention to it...whether it’s a person, place or thing.”

Within a year of his initial classes at the Art Students League, Mastromatteo’s friend Sarah Lamb introduced him to Jacob Collins at the Water Street Atelier in Brooklyn. It was clear from the outset that Collins’ work was something he wanted to investigate. Once he decided to pursue his studies at Water Street, Mastromatteo left Christies to devote his attention full-time to becoming a visual artist.

During this same period, Mastromatteo first met Stella Munoz Rodriguez, the woman he would marry in 1999. Mastromatteo continued to study through 2002 when he made the transition to living as a professional painter. In spite of some early success in New York City and after having signed a representation agreement with Spanierman Gallery, Mastromatteo and his wife moved back to Ohio in 2004.

That move was both challenging and rewarding. Although the Ohio location has “meant more need to hustle”, it has also opened up the painter’s creativity. In spite of working in a studio without heat in his first years back in Akron, he has no regrets. The lack of a “ready-made art world” has meant that Mastromatteo had to find sources for intellectual engagement outside of himself. He has become an even more avid reader, embracing both historical and contemporary writings on philosophy, science and literature; and he has continued to follow the discipline of working that he was instilled in him by the Jesuits in high school; as he notes, “the strict habit of working” has served him well.

Nowhere is that more evident than in Mastromatteo’s diverse reading list, which encompasses James Joyce as well as a numerous medieval and contemporary philosophers including Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, Gottfried Leibniz, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Serres and Gaston Bachelard. [ii] At the core of much of his reading are questions about perception, about “how the knowledge of reality affects the way we experience reality”. As an artist, he is especially curious about how the “process of creativity functions as a way of engaging the real world”. This type of philosophical inquiry both supports Mastromatteo’s art work and keeps him connected to a larger intellectual world of scholarship and exploration. As he remarks, “It is a choice to read widely and learn.”

Living in Akron has also meant that the cost of living is reasonable and Mastromatteo has the luxury of being able to take more risks with his art. He can explore ideas more freely without feeling pressure to fit his work into a particular category. Today, the unheated studio has been replaced by a dedicated space at home where he can paint and take care of his daughter, who was born in 2006.

Looking ahead, Mastromatteo foresees a continued exploration of painting, but he is also interested in building his business. The knowledge gained from his years at Christies gave him a singular perspective about the inherent value versus the perceived value of art. That in turn raises questions about how to create value and simultaneously maintain integrity in a market that is often fickle. Mastromatteo’s natural tendency toward philosophical discourse finds a place in all aspects of his work, enabling him not only to appreciate the historical context of ideas, but also to relate them to the specific and tangible images that he creates.

Janet Whitmore, Ph.D.


[i] Although the Fogg Museum uses the title Self-Portrait Dedicated to Paul Gauguin, van Gogh described the portrait as “a simple worshipper of the eternal Buddha.” See  Letter 695 to Paul Gauguin, Wednesday, 3 October 1888 at vangoghletters.org.


[ii] For a brief introduction to the life and work of these philosophers, see the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy at: https://plato.stanford.edu

AVAILABLE WORKS
Browse by Artist
Anthony Mastromatteo
(Born 1970)
Beauty is a Drug (Set of 9)
Oil on panel
12 x 12 inches easch
Signed on reverse
Anthony Mastromatteo
(Born 1970)
LUX
Mixed Media
12 x 12 inches
Signed, titled and dated on the reverse