Salvatore Pinto

By the age of fifteen, Pinto had already had his work acquired by the Art Institute of Chicago, an achievement that augured well for a brilliant career as an artist. In 1929, when he was in his mid-twenties and had completed his training at the Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Art (1921–25; now the University of the Arts) and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1925–26), Pinto began
exhibiting in premier institutions in Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. By 1933, his work was being shown in Paris at the Bignou Gallery and had been included in the Whitney Museum of American Art Biennial.

The momentum behind Salvatore’s early success was Dr. Albert C. Barnes, who supported, collected, and cultivated the work of the artist and his brothers. Salvatore studied at the Foundation from 1927 to 1932 and 1934 to 1938, and he and his brothers received three consecutive scholarships from Barnes in 1931, 1932, and 1933 to travel to Europe. Pinto’s scenes of architecture, beachgoers, performers, and harem figures, among others, all point toward an artist who vacillated comfortably between medium, subject, and emotive content.