STATEN ISLAND, NY.- The Garibaldi Meucci Museum is presenting the second solo exhibit of Italian American artist, Annamarie Trombetta from July 15th to August 10, 2024.

A closing event on August 10, 2024 will include a lecture by the artist on this exhibit, with refreshments. Ms. Trombetta’s exhibit includes original drawings, pastels, etchings, watercolors and oil paintings that were created on location, outdoors also known in Italian as “all aperto”. Trombetta’s combines working all aperto with concepts, and creativity to “reconstruct” the genre of realism in her artwork. She found inspiration in Italy, Central Park, New York and Staten Island which are the subject matter for the work in this exhibit.


Annamarie Trombetta, Central Park Clockwork Mode of Colored Apps. Sculptural Painting. Oil on Canvas.


This exhibition was curated with the intent of shedding light on the cultural and political interconnections between Italy and United States and the influence they both had on one another during the formative years of each country’s evolution during the 19th century. During Garibaldi’ s time in the United States, Lincoln offered Garibaldi a Major General’s commission to fight for the Union Army in the Civil War. Garibaldi said he would, under the condition that the war would be about the emancipation of the southern slaves. Garibaldi wrote a letter on August 6, 1863, praising Lincoln for his issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation. Garibaldi decided to returned to Italy and led an expedition toward Rome as part of the Italian Risorgimento. In his honor, a New York infantry regiment, was named the “Garibaldi Guard”.


Annamarie Trombetta, Bethesda Fountain Angel of the Waters. Oil on 24 inch Triangular Canvas.


Artist Annamarie Trombetta was aware of these historic events and in 2001 after winning her first Council of the Arts grant from Staten Island, her first project was to paint the nations’ first schoolhouse located in Richmondtown, Staten Island, the Voorlezer House. Trombetta’s last oil painting for her 2001 grant was The Garibaldi Meucci Museum. The artist used the “Il Tricolore” of the Italian national flag as a way to evoke and symbolize the revolution of 1848 and the Republic of Italy. Her compositional design is meant to infers the separate city-states and foreign occupation by the Austrians and French prior to Italy’s Risorgimento. In the foreground of Annamarie’s painting, the viewer is confronted with Antonio Meucci’s tomb and in the background, his Staten Island home and the role it played in the recovery of Giuseppe Garibaldi. Meucci and his house, allowed Garibaldi to work and live in this country and return back to the Risorgimento movement which eventually lead to the unification and Republic of Italy. In 2001, when Annamarie was painting her image of the museum , she saw a low flying plane overhead as she was painting. It was the second plane that went into the tower on September 11th. This painting captures the artist’s 9/11 experience and location when the towers fell and our nations unforgettable historic tragedy unfolded.


Annamarie Trombetta, Statue of Garibaldi and Sfoza Castle in Milan. Oil on 12 inch Tondo.


The origins of Ms. Trombetta’s current exhibit can be traced back to when she was a student at The New York Academy of Art. Here, her education was fortified by dissecting cadavers and studying the lives and masterpieces of Italian artists such as Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo Buonarroti , Raphael Sanzio, Titian, Veronese, Giorgione, Caravaggio and female artists. Sofonisba Anguiosola, Artemisia Genteleschi and Rosa Alba Carrara, etc. Annamarie was able to travel via her instructors’ organized trips to Italy and the French countryside, during her time at the New York Academy. These student experiences greatly contributed to Ms. Trombetta’s love for traveling and working “all aperto”. It was during her travels abroad with her instructors that Trombetta saw Europe’s historic and artistic past and present harmoniously intertwined. This inspired her desire to capture locations fusing silent messages within the stillness of one image, as many artists have done throughout time.


Annamarie Trombetta, Thinking Outside The Box. Oil Painting Sculpture, 3 Dim. Snug Harbor.


Trombetta extended her education studying printmaking, pastels etc at The National Academy School of Fine Arts while concurrently extending her art history education as an employee at The National Academy Museum. Trombetta’s etchings of Belvedere Castle and The Harlem Meer, the first “Little Italy” in New York, in her current exhibit, are a by product of her trips to Europe and printmaking classes when she attended both Academies in New York.


Annamarie Trombetta, Szorza Castle Moat. Oil on Square, 12 x 12 Canvas.


The National Academy Museum's introduced Trombetta to the Hudson River School artists who are known as the country’s first art movement. Trombetta viewed works by artists Thomas Cole, his sister Sarah Cole, Frederick E. Church, Asher B. Durand, Susie M. Barstow and Staten Island born artist.


Annamarie Trombetta, Back of The Uffizi with Arno Reflections. Pastel, 10 x 10 inch Hexagon.


Jasper Cropsey to name a few. These artists painted outdoors in the Catskills and were also instrumental in pioneering the idea for the nations’ first public park. Their influence on poet, lawyer and editor of the The New York Evening Post, William Cullen Bryant, led to articles which literally blazed the trails to create Central Park, which is the nations first public park in the world, The intent of the park was be accessible to each individual within society. Ironically, William Cullen Bryant died in 1878 of complications from an accidental fall he suffered after participating in Central Park ceremony to honor Italian patriot Giuseppe Mazzini. Designer, Frederick Law Olmsted, lived on Staten Island when he was creating Central Park. During Ms. Trombetta’s time working at the National Academy Museum, a significant exhibition of the 19th century Italian artists known as the Macchiaioli from Italian Gaetano Marzotto private collection was exhibited. The Italian artists known as the Macchiaioli (macchia-stain) wanted to break free from the Italian academic traditions by working all aperto (outdoors) around 1848. They came into prominence more than a decade before French impressionism which began around 1863. The Macchiaioli artists were from the Tuscan region also fought along side Giuseppe Garibaldi in the Risorgimento to unify Italy.


Annamarie Trombetta, View of Florence from Piazza Michelangelo Oil on 10 inch Canvas.


Addition grants from the Staten Island Council of the Arts, allowed Ms. Trombetta to create works on site at Snug Harbor . She saw the connections of Alexander Hamilton, who founded The New York Evening Post, (responsible for the articles that created Central Park) and the fact that he was the personal lawyer to Robert Richard Randall, who founded Snug Harbor, as worthwhile. Trombetta’s five sided painted cube encompasses five locations at Snug Harbor into one sculptural piece. A derivative of this modified motif is seen years later in Trombetta’s miniature Central Park piece titled “Clockwork Mode of Apps” which depicts locations at the north, south, east and west side of Central Park, with Bethesda Fountain as the centerpiece. Trombetta’s first depiction of Bethesda Fountain is composed within a triangular shaped canvas due to its trinity of significance one of which celebrates the fresh water via New York’s Aqueduct. On July 27, 2024, at 2 PM, Italian writer, Maria Teresa Cometto author of the book “Emma and the Angel of Central Park” will give a lecture on the artist Emma Stebbins and the statue which was sculpted in Italy, bringing the art of Italy into the heart of Central Park.


Annamarie Trombetta, Daylight Views of Venice Santa Maria Salute San Giorgio Maggiore Punta Della Dogana. Oil on Hexag on Canvas.


Trombetta series of paintings from various locations in Central Park includes “The Roots of my Family Trees” . Her painting series of “ tree roots’ began before and after she visited Italy. Each canvas’ depth and size increases, to mirror the concept of growth. Her visits to Italy resulted in her modern paintings of Milan which are rooted in Milan’s long standing historical structures conjoined with the memory of “the Cinque giornate di Milano” in 1848 which freed Milan from Austrian occupation. Trombetta’s depictions of Florence exemplify her signature style, using atypical shaped compositions synonymous with many Italian works of art in churches and museums in Italy. To compliment her Italianate imagery, Annamarie’s Venetian sculpture pairs a unique ensemble and use of the quintessential symbols of Venice, bridges, glass and water. Additionally, the artist included a Glice’e of her father’s family home in Carpino, Italy, in the region of Puglia. Trombetta is also exhibiting her 2018 painting of The Italian American Museum. Her work was inspired by the museum’s original Stabile Bank location and the personalities of the museum’s founder and staff members as an homage to its first site. last solo exhibit in 2015 was at Italian American Museum. Please visit www.garibaldimeuccimuseum.com for all of Annamarie Trombetta’s events.


Artist Annamarie Trombetta Painting in Central Park Conservatory Garden.