Joie de Vivre

Letterio Calapai

Letterio Calapai learned intaglio engraving at the suggestion of Atelier 17 founder Stanley William Hayter and he spent 3 years working at the experimental atelier in New York.

"Joie de Vivre" is a combination of engraving, etching and deep bite gauffrage. The deeply embossed white elements are bitten with acid or removed from the plate using tools. They are so deep that the ink cannot print and they register on the paper as a third dimension.

This artist's proof impression of "Joie de Vivre" or "Joy of Life" is printed in black and white. In 1968 Calapai printed a published edition of 20 impressions using viscosity color techniques.

Letterio Calapai, painter, printmaker, illustrator, and teacher, was born in Boston, Massachusetts on March 29, 1901. Following his graduation from the Massachusetts Normal Art School (now the Massachusetts College of Art) in 1925, he was awarded a two-year scholarship to the School of Fine Arts and Crafts in Boston where he worked under Charles Hopkinson and Howard Giles. In 1928, Calapai moved to New York to continue his studies, taking sculpture at the Beaux Art Institute of Design, figure drawing with Robert Laurent at the Art Students’ League, and the techniques of fresco painting with Ben Shahn at the American Artists School. His first solo exhibition was at the Art Center in New York City in 1933.

As a muralist, Calapai painted a mural about 1937 for the WPA entitled The Evolution of Communications in American Wars, which was painted for the 101st Battalion Signal Corps in Brooklyn, New York. He also created several murals for the 1939 New York World’s Fair.

Calapai worked at Stanley William Hayter's Atelier 17 in New York between 1946 and 1949, eventually becoming Hayter's assistant. Following this, with Hayter’s recommendation and at the behest of Philip Clarkson Elliott, he was hired to establish the printmaking department at the Albright Art School. He was chairman for six years, during which time the school transitioned to become the University of Buffalo. He returned to New York City in 1955, and in 1959 he received a Tiffany Foundation Grant, allowing him to establish the Intaglio Workshop for Advanced Printmaking in Greenwich Village. Calapai also taught at the New School for Social Research, New York University, and Brandeis University. He moved to Chicago in 1965 and, as visiting Associate Professor, taught at Kendall College, Evanston. The following year, Calapai was asked to teach the summer session of graphics at the University of Illinois, Chicago.

Calapai illustrated a variety of literary works centering on sociopolitical and religious themes. Among them were Lorenz Graham's How God Fix Jonah, 1946, with a foreword by W.E.B. DuBois; a portfolio of woodcuts based on Thomas Wolfe's novel Look Homeward Angel, 1948; and The Negro Bible Series, 1946, republished by Cornel West in 1992.