STUDIO CORTO: Innovation, Art and Graphics Entity created to serve content development for companies in the technology industry that drive SEO and other internet directed activities and not the actual content that they support .

2023 - 2024

THE TOWERS: NEW YORK AND FLORENCE ITALY (1500 -2023) These two cities share many things they are both famous large cities in their country but they are both are not capital cities. They are both home to many great innovators, artists and poets. They are both noted for their towers. In New York from the Empire State building to the the Chrysler Building, The World Trade Center to the new apartment buildings that have gone up in the last 5 years. Both have great skylines. In Florence Italy the Miniato, the Giotto’s bell tower of the cathedral, Palazzo Vecchio, Palazzo Pitti, Florence Baptistry, Laurention, Uffizi. The Towers is intended to be a large scale work painted on canvas to be created in 2023 - 2024.

2019 - 2022 one of six hand made sketchpads “August and September” Cardboard and Strathimore paper cut to size with string binder 4”X 5”

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*NOTE: many of the photographs are taken on an IPhone and are not high resolution. Best viewed on your smart phone for a basic impression of the work.

2022 - 2023 CHICAGO WATERCOLOR PAINTINGS

On a recent trip to Chicago there was a unique presence of the Chicago skyline that we later looked at and sketched in New York. The titles were “No Rules. No Rulers.”

2022 - 2023

“Empty Skyscrapers New York” Studies for larger paintings executed in watercolor on Arches Watercolor paper.

The Pandemic was a hard time for people, places, businesses and the arts. These are samples of pages from sketch books in 2020 - 2021 that were attempts to keep the work going as we were all behind locked doors.

2021:

Passage Two. Wrapped rose painting bundles for art video 2021.

“Designs for Ceramic plates” Video 2021

2019 - 2021 The Pandemic was a hard time for people, places, businesses and the arts. These are samples of pages from sketch books in 2020 - 2021 that were attempts to keep the work going as we were all behind locked doors.

In late 2019 we started to create paintings of roses. There are about 20 studies right now. Some of these like the one here will be created on a large scale on canvas about 10’ X 4’.

When I returned in the spring of 1997 to New York from Paris I went to a gardening store that used to be near Franklin Street and West Broadway.  I had a conversation about American Climber Roses with a sage from Connecticut, Beth who looked like Gertrud Stein and her partner Camille. They told me that the climbing rose was the only rose that would survive the winter on a roof top in New York City.  Camille said she has a 15 year old American Climber plant alone on a hill in Kent Connecticut. They both said that if these roses made it through the first winter they would last forever. I piled what seemed like a million bags of soil, winterized planter containers, tools, bushes, and three American climbers. The small rocks went in first, then the sand very carefully and two types of soil one black one brown. I was told not to pamper them too much. I put them on the south wall with lots of sun and wind to toughen them. In February I almost lost one of them.  I used to sit with them in a chair under blankets on sunny winter days it was very peaceful. I would lift the straw that was protecting them from the snow and frost so the sun could reach the cold roots. 

I remember getting a call from somebody when I was on a shoot for Bacardi in Miami. A  7 1/2 inch dark pink rose was seen on one of my plants. I handed the shoot over to my assistant and flew back to see it. It was incredible. 

I hope they are still climbing. I know I am.

They taught me well

Linda's Pink Rose Diptyque  8"x 20 " Digital Print 2018

Rose Painting Series 2017 and 2018

Three painted roses on Arches watercolor paper  5"x 7" 2017

"Black and Red Rose - Gertrud 1, 2, and 3"

2018

A series of drawings on cut up brown paper bags that will be re-created on 24 " X 24" wood panels  with house paint. They will be two color, red and black. The series will also be made as lithographs 20" x 24" on Arches print paper.

Installation "Good Bye 169 Dwight Street"

Installation 169 Dwight Street 2018 Book about type fonts a  drawing and watercolor on sea weed canvas 20" x 30"

Installation 169 Dwight Street 2018 book pages and watercolors 22"x 24" 2016

The life of an artist is a serious one. Like "drawing it is serous business." Picasso

My favorite place to make pictures is Italy with its bright modernity and ancient architecture sitting right next to each other like a bouquet and a hedge. In the fall I get up in the morning early and I take walks to find the dead flowers near my home. Many we did not see when they were in their glory in summer. Some you could see were great leaders of their garden, statesmen, some were great mothers, great fathers others were colorful comedians. It was the way they died before the winter that was so striking.

Jody Burke a friend mine who introduced my wife Marili to me was a Broadway dancer and a great chef. He also loved sunflowers. After my wife and I were married we came upon a sunflower field years later near Aix en Provence.

There they were, all moving to the mistral under a grey blue sky.

I think Marili took a picture.

 I will never forget it.

Corto 2018

"Romantic relaxed red bouquet" large format watercolor a d house paint on a wood panel 30"X 40"  2017

IF THE TREE WAS THE FIRST CATHEDRAL

THEN THE FLOWER WAS THE FIRST SIN

Le Fleur

If the tree was the first cathedral

Then the flower was the first sin

That arcane beauty

Moved woman and man  

woman would make the earth shake

And then the generations come

Every year the flowers die as brown debris

 and then come back again

in green, red, blue and yellow too

I stare in fear in front of Delacroix

And try to make just one pedal of it and fail

The flowers are different in Japan and France

And they are like nothing else in America

Put it on a dress and it looks silly

Put a simple daisy on a table and it is sublime

The Avant guard tried to kill beauty

And they did

But the flower’s death fools them

It goes away for a while

and then it comes back

I always enjoy watching

 the sins come back 

"Soothing green and yellow bouquet" large format watercolor 30" X 40"  2017

"Winter Seascape of the Long Island Sound" from a theme of Eugene Delacroix's watercolors off the coast of Normandy  8 1/2" X 11" Watercolor on HP Printer paper 2016

"Refreshed red bouquet"large format watercolor and housepaint on wood. 30"X 40" 2017

"Silent safe yellow bouquet" large format watercolor and house paint on wood 30"X40"  2016

"Silent yellow bouquet" large format watercolor and house paint 30"X40"  2017

CORTO CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

EDUCATION: SCHOOL OF VISUAL ARTS BFA

INTERNED ASSISTED

JOSEPH KOSUTH, ART LANGUAGE, CONCEPTUAL ART 'THE FOX MAGIZINE

112 GREEN STREET GROUP SHOW 

ADVERTISING CAREER

BBDO

LINTAS WORLDWIDE

GLOBAL BRANDS

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COMPANIES

FORMED 25 MILLION DOLLAR ADVERTISING AGENCY

OCEAN GROUP 2001- 2008

FORMED BRANDESPACE INC 2008 TO PRESENT

ART:

SACRED TABLETS PARMA ITALY

THE GLOVES ARE ON 64 WOOSTER STREET GROUP SHOW

JAPAN WALK,  KIOTO JAPAN

TIME STATIONS

TOTOLA DRAWINGS

VEILS

DRAWINGS PICASSO AND MATISSE STUDIES 2013 TO 2016

BYE CY WATERCOLOR STUDIES

BYE CY 30 X 30 PAINTINGS ON WOOD 2017

ROSES ON WHITE 21”X 11” 2018 2019

CERAMIC DESIGNS 2021

Proposed paintings for the "Cipriani Dolci" in Grand Central Terminal in New York for the Cipriani Group fall 2017 Title: "Calming  Cipriani  green"