In 1947, when I was seven years old, my parents, five
brothers, two sisters, and I came to New York City from Italy. We travelled
seven days on a freighter and landed on Ellis Island.
That moment of entry on December 7, 1947, is still vivid. As
we passed through immigration, I remember straining to see New York harbor
through the windows of the processing center. In the distance, thousands of
glowing lights dotted the skyline. The metropolis beckoned, and I intuitively
grasped the promise, excitement, and staggering immensity of the place.
Today, I have no doubt that my deep feelings for the city
derive from those first indelibly imprinted and magical moments. As an artist,
I found that I wanted, somehow, to replicate on canvas those first sensations.
Conversely, I also wanted to convey how the metropolis’s incomprehensible
vastness and richness can sometimes make one feel (especially an untested seven
year old) small and insignificant.
About a decade ago, I began a series of paintings that
mainly focus on the bridges of New York City. The first bridge I painted was
the 59th Street (Queensborough) bridge. I have a particular attachment to the
59th Street Bridge because in the early 1900s my grandfather Francisco Masi was
one of the multitudes of Italian laborers who hauled steel girders to build it.
Many years later, I learned that the bridge opened in 1909 and that more than
50 people had given their lives to building it.
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Fordham University Press, published a book on his paintings
titled, “New York’s Golden Age of Bridges”, with essays by Joan Marans Dim.
He has had feature articles in The Artist’s Magazine,
Watercolor Magazine, American Artists, PBS- “Sunday Arts”, NBC-TV “Weekend
Today in New York”,
published in many issues of “Splash”, The New Times, Sept.
2008 article titled “A Painter’s Brush With the Bridges of New York”, Newsday
feature in Aug. 2008,
“Bridgemaster”. In June 2009 a solo exhibition for “The New
York Centennial
Commission of the Quensboro Bridge”, in 2010 a solos show at
the “Forbes Gallery
In New York City”, solo exhibition at The New York City
Transit Museum, in 2012 solo show at “The Salmagundi Club of New York” and The
New York Times video Sept. 2014
titled,” Living City: A Tale of Two Bridges”.
In 2009 Masi won the “High Winds” award in the annual AWS
Exhibit, he is a recipient of “The Dolphin Award” and numerous other awards
during his career.
He is currently President of the American Watercolor
Society.
“Family Walk”- Manhattan Bridge , watercolor
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