Discipline: Visual Art

Giorgio Cavallon

Discipline: Visual Art
Region: New York, NY
MacDowell Fellowships: 1955
Giorgio Cavallon (1904–1989) was a founding member of the American Abstract Artists and a pioneer abstract expressionist. Born in Sorio, Italy, he immigrated to the United States in 1920. In 1926, Cavallon enrolled in the National Academy of Design in New York. Upon graduating, he moved to the artistic community of Provincetown, MA, where he befriended Charles Hawthorne and Hans Hofmann. In 1934, Cavallon was employed in the Easel and Mural Division of the WPA Federal Art Project as Arshile Gorky’s assistant. Cavallon helped found the American Abstract Artists group, with whom he exhibited yearly from 1936–1957. He was a charter member of The Club and participated in the Ninth Street Show in 1949. Represented by the venerable Egan Gallery and later by the Kootz Gallery, both in New York, Cavallon mounted numerous solo exhibitions and participated in several group shows, including “Documenta II,” the 1959 Whitney Annual, and the Museum of Modern Art’s 1951 exhibition “Abstract Art in America.” In 1988, Cavallon was inducted into the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in New York City.

Studios

Cheney

Giorgio Cavallon worked in the Cheney studio.

Cheney Studio was given to MacDowell by Mrs. Benjamin P. Cheney and Mrs. Karl Kauffman. Like Barnard Studio, Cheney is a low, broadly massed bungalow. Sited on a steep westward slope, its porches are supported on wooden posts and fieldstone with lattices. Although it still retains its appealing character, the original design of the shingled building…

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