Signed and dated "Italo Scanga 1992" in lower right. Lower left: "Monotype Pilchuck"; middle bottom, "Kitchen Print". Depicts an eggplant in an abstract kitchen. 

Overall Size: 41 x 31 1/2 in. 
Sight Size: 32 x 24 in. 
#5600 . 

Italo Pasquale Bernardo Scanga was born on June 6th, 1932 in Lago, Calabria, to Giuseppe and Serafina Ziccarelli. His father and older brother moved to America a few years after his birth, and his mother planned to take him and his other siblings as soon as possible to escape abject poverty. On the day of departure in 1939 American troops invaded Italy, and he was forced to work as a cabinetmaker’s apprentice throughout the war, developing an affinity for sculpture. At the age of 15 his mother was finally able to emigrate to Point Marion, Pennsylvania, assisting his father as a laborer for the railroad. In 1950 the family moved to Garden City, Michigan, where he and the rest of his family worked for General Motors. Despite his busy work schedule, he studied at the Society of Arts in Crafts in Detroit until 1953, but due to his language barrier he graduated high school at the age of 21, immediately thereafter drafted into the US Army to serve in an armored tank division in Austria. Returning to America in 1956, he married Mary Louise Ashley, with whom he had four children. He received a BA and MA from Michigan State University, studying under Lyndsey Decker and Charles Pollock. During the late 1960s and early 70s he taught art at the University of Wisconsin and then the Rhode Island School of Design, where he first met glass art master Dale Chihuly. He moved to San Diego to teach at the University of California in 1978, and was frequently an artist-in-residence and teacher at the Pilchuck Art Glass School in Stanwood, Washington. By 1982 he had started making yearly pilgrimages back to Italy to reconnect with his roots, and after divorcing Mary he married Stephanie Smedley the following year. The late 80s and early 90s were his most prolific period, culminating in his divorce from Stephanie and meeting Su-Mei Yu, his muse and companion for the remainder of his life. Described by friends as a “permanent nomad” and considered a preeminent new-Dadaist multimedia artist, he died of heart failure in his Turquoise Street studio on July 27th, 2001. His family created a foundation in his name to function as a non-profit charitable trust promoting the visual arts and providing scholarships, with Dale Chihuly on the board.

Good.