Jon Corbino (1905-1964) American, Painted Glazed Ceramic Plate Attached to Frame. Image shows a circus performer standing on a prancing horse with two other figures nearby and a blue border with red dots. Unsigned. Inserted and attached to the frame, which surrounded it with burgundy felt and an intricate gilt border. On the back is another image of a demure dark-haired woman lying down with her face propped up in her hands, resting on her elbows on a green background. 

Overall Size: 11 3/4 x 11 3/4 in. 

Sight Size: 6 5/8 x 6 5/8 in. 

#5405 . 

Jon Corbino was born on April 3rd, 1905 in Vittoria, Sicily and immigrated with his parents to the United States when he was eight, where they settled in New York City. As a teen he was drawn to art as a way to express the dreams he experienced from hearing his parents first-hand accounts of the wars and natural disasters in Europe they witnessed, as well as the tales of Roman mythology they taught him. He developed a strong affection for horses that influenced his life and art as well as a love of the performing arts, particularly the circus and ballet. He attended the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in the Bronx on an art scholarship, and then studied at the Art Students League. He also attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, where he met and married his wife, Marcia, in 1929, with whom he had six children. Throughout the 1930s his work, rich in color and symbolism, displayed a more dramatic and exuberant approach to the difficulties of the Depression than the prevailing Social Realism movement. He was described by critics as a Romantic Realist, with his first national award at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1932 for a painting titled “Earthquake.” He was awarded two back-to-back Guggenheim Fellowships in 1936 and 1937, was elected a member of the National Academy of Design in 1940, and in 1941 he received the first grant awarded to a visual artist from the National Institute of Arts and Letters. By 1945 he was one of the most acclaimed artists in America, with his paintings appearing on the covers of three art magazines and feature articles about him appearing in Esquire, Time, and Life Magazines. A prolific and compulsive artist, as well as a lifelong smoker, he and his family moved out of the city to Rockport, Massachusetts for fresher air when his health began to deteriorate in 1949. His work was featured in three Venice Biennales in the 1950s, heavily inspired after revisiting his birthplace for the first time in almost forty years. His health worsened significantly in the late 1950s, and he divided much of his time between summers in Rockport and winters in Sarasota, Florida on doctor’s orders. He exhibited frequently with the Sarasota Fine Arts Society and at the Frank Oehlschlaeger Gallery, and some of his pieces are still on display at the Ringling College of Art and Design and in the archives of the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art. He passed away on July 10th, 1964 at Sarasota Memorial Hospital after a long battle with lung cancer, just 59 years old. Today his work is in many public and private collections around the country, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Portland Art Museum, the Walker Art Center, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.