Donatus Buongiorno

Donatus Buongiorno was born Donato Buongiorno November 11, 1865, in Solofra, Avellino, Italy, to Biagio Buongiorno (1827–after 1898) and Maddalena Solimine (1825–1866). He left Solofra for Naples in the late 1880s to enroll in the Accademia di Belle Arti di Napoli (Academy of Fine Arts of Naples, formerly known as the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Naples). He graduated in 1890 and later taught there.

He emigrated from Naples to New York in 1892 and New York remained his base for the next 27 years. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1895. Painting commissions and teaching led him to other American cities including Boston, Massachusetts; San Francisco, California; Indianapolis, Indiana, and Brattleboro, Vermont.

He returned to Italy in 1919 to live full-time, though he continued to travel to the U.S. for work until 1931. Wherever he was based, he always went back to the other country to work for extended periods.

In New York in the 1890s, he executed privately commissioned portraits but spent his days working as a designer in a wallpaper factory. In the early 1900s, Italian-American Catholic churches began commissioning him to paint murals and other church decorations. Those works include “Apotheosis of the Evangelist,” Church of St. Leonard of the Franciscan Fathers; “St. Charles Borromeo,” Church of Sacred Heart; “The Holy Trinity,” Church of St. Peter; all in Boston, Massachusetts. “Episodes of Christ and St. Charles Borromeo,” Church of St. Lazarus in East Boston, Massachusetts. “Fall of the Angels,” St. Michael’s Catholic Church in Brattleboro, Vermont. “The Apotheosis of St. Clara” (sic), St. Clare’s Church; “Our Lady of Peace,” Church of Our Lady of Peace; “Principal Episodes in the Life of Christ, of St. Francis of Assisi, and of St. Anthony of Padua,” Church of the Most Precious Blood; all in New York.

Back in Italy in 1908, he worked on the restoration of La Collegiata di San Michele Arcangelo, an important 17th-century church in his hometown of Solofra, Avellino, where he also had an exhibition of paintings . He attended an international art congress of art educators in Rome in 1911,[1] the same year a painting of his was accepted into the prestigious annual show of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts[2] in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

In addition to murals and portraits, throughout his life he made easel paintings that he sold out of his studios in New York and Naples. He also served as a dealer for other Italian artists whose works he imported into the US and sold in New York, San Francisco and elsewhere.

Donatus Buongiorno was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 1898 and was politically active in the United States.

He painted a large portrait of William McKinley which may have been commissioned during McKinley's 1896 presidential campaign, or, after he was assassinated in 1901, for the Pan-American Exposition of 1901 in Buffalo NY (where President McKinley was shot at the beginning of his second term in office, and where he later succumbed to his wounds.) An inscription on the back of the canvas indicates later ownership by a New York camp of the USWV (United Spanish–American War Veterans) and cites (USN) Flying Squadron #16, possibly that of Rear Admiral W.S. Schley which launched out of New York on its flagship Brooklyn (CA-3) during the Spanish–American War in 1898.

In 1908, Buongiorno joined other artists in signing a petition to the U.S. Congress opposing tariffs on imported artwork.[3]

That same year, Buongiorno sued a famous stage actor, William Faversham, for non-payment of a fee and won. Although the press heavily implied that Buongiorno tried to intimidate the actor into paying a not-quite-confirmed commission,[4] Buongiorno received a judgment of $29 plus costs two months later.[5] (Other lawsuits and multiple bankruptcies in later years further revealed the actor’s impecunious history.)

Buongiorno died on October 25, 1935, in a suburb of Naples, Italy.

Buongiorno was married to Teresina La Gata (b. 1863, Pomigliano D’Arco, Compania, Italy) from 1888 to her death between 1915 and 1919, and to Jean Skene (1879–?) from 1919 to an unknown date, perhaps his death in 1935.

He had one child with La Gata, a son, Biagio Buongiorno (1901–1921).

Nick Buongiorno (1908–1985), an American painter, was his nephew.

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• Atti del Congresso Artistico Internazionale, Roma Aprile MDCCCXI, Roma, 1911, p. 17.
• Barra, Francesco. Storia illustrata di Avellino e dell’Irpinia, vol. V, Lo Stato unitario, Sellinoi & Barra, Pratola Serra, Avellino, Italia, 1996, p. 207.
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• Falk, Peter Hastings. Annual Exhibition Record of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1876–1913, Sound View Press, Madison, Connecticut, 1989, p. 114.
• Garzilli, Francesco. La Collegiata di San Michele Arcangelo in Solofra, memorie e documenti, Napoli, Arte tipografica, 1989.
• Harvard University Department of Economics, ed. “The Brief of the American Free Art League of the Removal of the Duties on Works of Art Submitted to the Ways and Means Committee, Washington, D.C., November 18, 1908,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Cambridge, Massachusetts, p. 116.
• Hughes, Edan Milton. Artists in California: 1786-1940, Sacramento, California, Crocker Art Museum, 2002, p. 169.
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• ______. American Art Annual Vol. VII, New York, MacMillan Co., 1910, p. 103.
• ______. American Art Annual Vol. X, New York, MacMillan Co., 1913, p. 291.
• ______. American Art Annual Vol. XII, New York, MacMillan Co., 1915, p. 336.
• ______. American Art Annual Vol. XIV, New York, MacMillan Co., 1917, p. 494.
• ______. American Art Annual Vol. XVI, New York, MacMillan Co., 1919, p. 324.
• ______. American Art Annual Vol. XVIII, New York, MacMillan Co., 1921, p. 343, 494.
• ______. American Art Annual Vol. XX, New York, MacMillan Co., 1923, p. 460.
• ______. American Art Annual Vol. XXII, New York, MacMillan Co., 1925, p. 428.
• Mallett, Daniel Trowbridge. Mallett’s Index of Artists, New York, R. R. Bowker Co., 1935, reprinted by Peter Smith, 1948, p. 60.
• Murray, Christopher John. Benezit Dictionary of Artists. Gründ, Paris, 2006, vol. 3, p. 19.
• Opitz, Glenn B. Mantle Fielding’s Dictionary of American Painters, Sculptors & Engravers, Poughkeepsie, New York, Apollo Book, 1983, p. 123.
• Soria, Regina. American Artists of Italian Heritage, 1776–1940, Cranbury, New Jersey, Associated University Presses, 1993, p. 44.