BIOGRAPHY

Born in Alcamo, Sicily, Tony came to the USA with his family at the age of five. He spent his childhood in New Jersey and his high school years in Narragansett, Rhode Island. After four years of service in the Navy, Tony changed his mind about becoming a dentist and started studying art and history at the University of Rhode Island. At the age of 24, he moved to New York and attended the Art Students League where he studied with Sidney Dickenson.

Returning to Rhode Island he got a BA in Art and History at the University of Rhode Island, then an MFA from Indiana University where he studied with William Bailey, and James McGarrell. Despite having studied entirely with figurative artists, within five years of finishing his graduate work, he gravitated from realism to abstraction. This change was dictated by his interest in giving form to color rather color to form.

Upon getting his masters, he started the art program Washington and Jefferson College and expanded the offerings and faculty in his three years there. In 1966, he joined the Michigan State University faculty as Professor of Art where he taught and inspired graduates and undergraduates, some of whom stayed in touch with him. In 1986, he returned to New York, where he showed his work at the Razor Gallery and later at the Louis K. Meisel Gallery. He briefly taught at the School of Visual Arts.

His early work in the ‘Energy’ and ‘Calligraphy’ series consisted of gestural abstract shapes of heavy-bodied paint similar to low relief. These consisted of many elements that mimicked pen or brush strokes on a larger scale that were positioned using a vinyl template. They were inspired by writing and calligraphy.

The ‘Geometry’ series, moved on to more solid pieces using geometric shapes to evoke the picture plane. combined with gestural, expressive larger strokes.

In 2002, after a nerve injury made working at his usual scale impossible, Tony turned to the more intricate, smaller pieces of the ‘Farther Out’ series that extruded up to 15” from the wall surface and created an illusory order between linear elements in an energized, open space. Spatial relationships change as the viewer leaves the frontal view, color and shape connections fall apart or are created. These culminated in his most complex piece, “What’s Up With That”.

When encroaching dementia and arthritis made dimensional work difficult, Tony was reluctantly enticed into making works on paper by his good friend and former student, David Headley. Over three years starting in 2018, working with magic markers Tony explored a wide range of mark-making and shape relationships. Some of the later works were made in collaboration with Lora Note, the home health aide caring for Tony and a woman of many talents.

He has shown work at The Detroit Institute of Art;, NY; The Dorothy Blau Gallery, Bay Harbor Island, FL; Wake Forest University Art Gallery, Winston-Salem; Grace Hokin Gallery, Palm Beach;, NY; Hokin Kaufman Gallery, Chicago; At The Thirty-third Corcoran Biennial in Washington D.C. he was one of 12 artists included and was represented by eight paintings.

Among the awards that he has received are the New York Foundation of the Arts Fellowship; Comfort Tiffany Foundation Fellowship; Michigan Council of the Arts Artists Grant; First prize at the Fifty Eighth Exhibition for Michigan Artists, (which included a purchase prize and one-person show) and first prize at the Chautauqua Exhibition of American Art.

During his lifetime, DeBlasi has had over thirty solo exhibitions including seven at the Louis Meisel Gallery in New York six at the Razor and Spectrum galleries as well as shows at the Michigan Kresge Art Museum , the Urban Institute of Contemporary Art and the Detroit Institute of Arts.

His work is in collections of the MSU Broad Art Museum, Detroit Institute of Arts, the Kresge Art Museum and the Rose Art Museum as well as in corporate and individual collections.