i love a good mosaic

What is it about tile mosaics that make me so happy? This work is one of a pair on the West Side on 50th Street near 11th Avenue, marking two side entryways to a public high school. Pretty great. One panel was so large, I had to take it in two parts.

I must investigate the artist, Fogel, and Crovatto Mosaics further.


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Here is what I found out about Crovatto:

"Crovatto is located in a little town in Italy, and its chief industry is making venetian glass mosaics (too expensive to have done in the States). To make the venetian glass, workers pound out very small pieces of colored glass and put them on individual pieces of mesh. They would then ship the pieces of mesh to us. Installation was like putting together a jigsaw puzzle." [source: thepeoplemover.com]

This Website, about the Travisanutto Giovanni SRL Studio in Italy, while not the source of our Fogel '77, is an interesting one to investigate. Click on Photo Gallery. It seems that Giovanni Travisanutto worked with "Crovatto Mosaics Inc., an affirmed Studio in New York, led by a man of common Friulan roots, Mr. Costante Crovatto."

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I just found the artist: Seymour Fogel (1911-1984), born in New York City, graduated from the National Academy, apprenticed with Diego Rivera, awarded several mural commissions by the WPA in the 30s and 40s, his work included in exhibitions at the Whitney Museum and the Corcoran. Here is a Website about another of his murals in Texas. According to this site, Fogel created 22 major murals in his life "using such media as ethyl silicate, a process he helped pioneer in the 1950's, glass and tile mosaics, oil paint on canvas, and other experimental multi-media compositions."