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Joseph DiStefano
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Joseph DiStefano (1940-2020)
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Joseph DiStefano (1940-2020) was both a New York and long-time Emeryville painter, sculptor and educator. A prolific and highly-varied artist, he was known for merging neo-classical forms, bold brushwork and symbolic imagery. His paintings bring to mind the work of Robert Rauschenberg, Jackson Pollock and Gerhard Richter. He earned his BFA from the Rochester Institute of Technology and an MFA from Yale University’s School of Art and Architecture. His work was featured in solo exhibitions at venues such as Museo Italiano in San Francisco, the Mackler Gallery in Philadelphia, and the Pro Arts Gallery in Oakland.
DiStefano often remarked that “life is like luggage—you can travel light, or you can carry everything you’ve ever loved.” His own approach was decidedly the latter. A collector of experiences, friendships, and stories, he was a consummate raconteur: magnetic, witty, and endlessly curious. One reviewer once described him as “a giant in a paint factory”—a fitting metaphor for an artist whose imagination seemed limitless. Compact in stature but immense in personality, he had a dry humor that matched his warmth. When asked how he was doing, he’d grin and say, “It’s been a long year. I used to be tall, blonde, and Swedish.”
DiStefano’s practice defied easy categorization. His experimental use of materials and imagery aligns him with the image-based innovation of Robert Rauschenberg, whose fusion of painting and object-making expanded the possibilities of modern art. Like Jackson Pollock, DiStefano captured the physical energy of creation itself—the gestures of the body translating directly into material presence. His bold, tactile surfaces and intuitive layering of color and texture evoke the blurred emotional atmospheres of Gerhard Richter, while his urban sensibility and visual audacity recall the streetwise immediacy of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Taken together, these affinities reveal an artist profoundly engaged with both the material and emotional dimensions of modern life.
After attending Yale, DiStefano taught woodworking and advanced sculpture at Virginia Commonwealth University, the California College of Arts and Crafts, and the University of California, Berkeley. A gifted educator and craftsman, he encouraged students to merge rigor with play—to let materials lead the way. He received a National Endowment for the Arts grant under the program Eight Artists in Industry at Kohler Co., an experience that deepened his engagement with the intersection of art, material innovation, and everyday utility.
In the late 1970s, DiStefano began working with concrete as a primary sculptural medium, pioneering a now widely imitated technique that used fabric as formwork for casting. The resulting works combined fluidity and firmness—industrial surfaces shaped by organic gestures. His concrete sculptures were featured in solo exhibitions at the Museo Italiano in San Francisco, the Mackler Gallery in Philadelphia, and the Pro Arts Gallery in Oakland. Critic Charles Shere of the Oakland Tribune praised the work as “surreal, biomorphic, sensual, often witty,” calling DiStefano’s approach “that rare thing—a new technique that perfectly enhances the stony but strangely living presence of the forms themselves.”
His works entered numerous public and private collections, including those of Eastman Kodak, Kohler Co., the Voulkos Family Collection, the Archdiocese of Oakland, the State of California, and the City of Sacramento, among others. His public art commissions include the Hammer Lane Underpass in Stockton, California; Your Memory Column for the Oakland Federal Building; and a monumental 7’ × 90′ wall mural for the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission.
We would like to thank his long-time partner, Diane Troy, for introducing his story and art to Lost Art Salon.
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