Sam Provenzano

Sam Provenzano was born in Luciusboro, Pennsylvania in 1923 but spent most of his childhood in Rochester, NY. As a teenager he won a scholarship to study art at Syracuse University but was drafted into the military during World War II before he could finish his degree. After receiving a GI Bill upon returning from the war, he went on to study painting at the Academy of Fine Art in Florence, Italy, the Paris Museum and Gallery, and the Academy of Fine Arts in Mexico City, eventually earning a bachelor of fine arts degree from Syracuse University in 1949. Between 1947 and 1949, he also studied with Hans Hoffman at his Provincetown school. There, he became Hoffman’s protégé and took to his push and pull method of abstract painting, which continued to inform his work over the next several decades.

Provenzano moved to San Francisco in 1951 and supported a young family by giving private studio lessons to adults and teaching at an elite private school for boys. He continued to paint and became a fixture of the Bay Area art scene, exhibiting regularly in San Francisco galleries and museums until his death in 1999. Early on in his career, Provenzano gained recognition as a local painter. In 1955, he was included in the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Western Artists exhibition, and exhibited in group shows at SF MoMA, de Young Museum, and the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in the 1960s. His work at this time was influenced by the developments in abstraction and figuration that were underway in the Bay Area, particularly expressionist approaches to painting. Hoffman’s push and pull method is evident in Provenzano’s use of color and form as he gradually moved from stylized scenes and portraits to abstract compositions in which figures are faintly recognizable.

Provenzano’s works are in the collections of the Crocker Art Museum, University of California, Berkeley, Oakland Museum of California, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, SF MoMA, San Francisco University Art Museum, and Rochester Museum Memorial Art Gallery.