REMEMBERING MY FATHER
Frank Rampolla (1931-1971)
My father passed away June 1971, 53 years ago. His artistic legacy is still as powerful today as it was when he was alive.
Ringling Museum Promotional photo as the first living artist to have a one man show at the Ringling Museum in 1965 in Sarasota, Florida.
The Smithsonian American Smithsonian American Art Museum has a series of my father’s etchings called Murder In The Cathederal. This collection was inspired by the 1935 T. S. Elliot play of the same name which is based on the murder of the Archbishop of Canterberry Thomas Beckett in 1170.
The boldness of my father’s work still inspires. His work is powerful and controversial. It spoke of the human condition and did not pull any punches as it is still as relevant today as it was when he made the work.
He was a painter, draftsman and sculptor of the highest caliber. He was to many art students, their ”favorite teacher” and a friend. In addition, he was a father, husband as well as a classical pianist and composer.
His artwork is in the permanent collections of major museums across the country, including the National Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Some people are finding my fathers work through my work. It is as if a whole new audience is seeing his work for the first time. Both of our bodies of work address the human condition.
Anecdote: In the mid-1960’s, his work, ‘Go-Go Girls’, a large oil painting on canvas, was juried into a show at the High Museum in Atlanta, Georgia. One of the trustees saw the show hanging the night before it was to go on view and demanded that ‘Go Go Girls’ be taken down because he deemed it to be obscene with pubic hair on display for all to see. The director of the museum took the painting down and installed it in his office. He eventually resigned over the incident. However, he admired my father’s work and was quoted as saying among other things, “Frank Rampolla’s work is like a four letter word in a quiet conversation.” There were cries from artists in Atlanta of censorship and this incident made quite an impact in the local press.
Quote: Taken from my father’s artist statement, “…The figure is both the safest and simultaneously the most dangerous subject-safe because of its historical precedent, dangerous for the ease with which it can be personally identified. To give dignity without pomp, to lend significance without anecdote-in short, to become a performance of the visual is the objective.”
