Diasporic Creativity: Edward E. Boccia
Faculty Department
Art
Presentation Type
Powerpoint
Location
H239
Zoom Link
Start Date
February 2025
End Date
February 2025
Description (Abstract)
Presentation on this important but generally overlooked American painter Edward E. Boccia (1921-2012). A professor of fine art for over thirty years at Washington University of St. Louis, Boccia was a dedicated teacher and learned poet and artist. Boccia's oeuvre offers a unique view into the diasporic community of Italian American artists (coloni) in the mid to late 20th century. This research examines how the works' complex pictorial language is a synthesis of symbols and stories from Greco-Roman mythology, the Passion of Christ, Modern and Renaissance Art History as well as riveting autobiography. The presentation will feature images of the artwork and commentary on the artist's lifetime dedication to teaching and developing artistic technique and original iconography to create a modernist body of work that interrogated the crisis of faith and materialism as well as universal problems such as spirituality, morality, war, consumerism, disease and personal loss. This research will be published as a book with Hirmer Verlag, Munich 2025/2026.
Keywords
art, painting, American art, modern art, contemporary art, diaspora, Italian American, ethnic studies
Related Pillar(s)
Spirituality, Study
Diasporic Creativity: Edward E. Boccia
H239
Presentation on this important but generally overlooked American painter Edward E. Boccia (1921-2012). A professor of fine art for over thirty years at Washington University of St. Louis, Boccia was a dedicated teacher and learned poet and artist. Boccia's oeuvre offers a unique view into the diasporic community of Italian American artists (coloni) in the mid to late 20th century. This research examines how the works' complex pictorial language is a synthesis of symbols and stories from Greco-Roman mythology, the Passion of Christ, Modern and Renaissance Art History as well as riveting autobiography. The presentation will feature images of the artwork and commentary on the artist's lifetime dedication to teaching and developing artistic technique and original iconography to create a modernist body of work that interrogated the crisis of faith and materialism as well as universal problems such as spirituality, morality, war, consumerism, disease and personal loss. This research will be published as a book with Hirmer Verlag, Munich 2025/2026.
Short Biography
Rosa Berland is a historian of modern and contemporary art with a special interest in diasporic production in America. She is currently working on the first monograph on the Italian American artist Edward E. Boccia and a book on the work of Janet Sobel.