Valenti Angelo (variant name Valenti Michael Angelo) was an Italian-American printmaker, illustrator

Illustrator

An Illustrator is a narrative artist who specializes in enhancing writing by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text...

 and author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

, born June 23, 1897 in Massarosa

Massarosa

Massarosa is a town and comune in the province of Lucca, Tuscany, Italy.-Frazioni:3191 People live in Stiava as of December 31, 2004. 1564 Of them are men, 1627 women. In the centre of the village is a local supermarket, a bakery and a few other shops. There is also a small church dedicated to the...

, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

. He immigrated to the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 with his family in 1905, living first in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 then settling in Antioch, California

Antioch, California

Antioch is a city in Contra Costa County, California. Located in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area along the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta, it is a suburb of San Francisco and Oakland. The city's population was 102,372 at the U.S...

. At the age of nineteen, Angelo moved to San Francisco, working by day as a labourer and spending his evenings and weekends at libraries and museums. He soon became a versatile artist and an especially skilled engraver and printer. Angelo's favoured medium was the linocut

Linocut

Linocut is a printmaking technique, a variant of woodcut in which a sheet of linoleum is used for the relief surface. A design is cut into the linoleum surface with a sharp knife, V-shaped chisel or gouge, with the raised areas representing a reversal of the parts to show printed...

, and his prints depicting urban nocturnes and desert scenes of the American Southwest are particularly coveted by collectors and dealers. In 1926, Angelo made his first book illustrations for the well-known, San Francisco-based Grabhorn Press.

In a period of 34 years, Angelo decorated and illustrated roughly 250 books. Among these were folio editions of Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman

Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...

's Leaves of Grass

Leaves of Grass

Leaves of Grass is a poetry collection by the American poet Walt Whitman . Though the first edition was published in 1855, Whitman spent his entire life writing Leaves of Grass, revising it in several editions until his death...

, The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, and numerous books of the Bible. Many of these books have been included in the annual American Institute of Graphic Arts

American Institute of Graphic Arts

AIGA is an American professional organization for design. Organized in 1914, AIGA currently has more than 22,000 members throughout 66 chapters and more than 200 student groups nationwide...

 exhibitions since 1927. Under the tutelage of May Massee

May Massee

May Massee was a children's book editor. Massee became the head of Doubleday's first juvenile department in 1922. Upon leaving Doubleday, she started Viking Press's first juvenile department in 1932...

 of Viking Press

Viking Press

Viking Press is an American publishing company owned by the Penguin Group, which has owned the company since 1975. It was founded in New York City on March 1, 1925, by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheim...

, Angelo began writing children's stories in 1937. In 1939, Angelo won the Newbery Honor for Nino. After a mid-life relocation to New York State, he returned to San Francisco in 1974 and continued his life's work. Angelo died in San Francisco on September 3, 1982.

Selected publications

• Paradise Valley
• The Rooster Club
• The Bells of Bleecker Street
  Bleecker Street
  Bleecker Street is a street in New York City's Manhattan borough. It is perhaps most famous today as a Greenwich Village nightclub district. The street is a spine that connects a neighborhood today popular for music venues and comedy, but which was once a major center for American bohemia.Bleecker...
  
  
• The Marble Fountain
• Nino

External links

• Autobiography
• Askart.com (Valenti Michael Angelo)
• Stony Brook University Archives (Valenti Angelo collection)
• International Fine Print Dealers Association (Valenti Angelo)

Example of books illustrated by Valenti Angelo