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Apr 16 / Gemma Insinna

Cappi Insinna, her life and works

Cappi Insinna is my mother and a wonderfully gifted artist. This is the story of her life and her art.

As she put it ” I never cease to thrill to the touch of my brush to my canvas–I want my paintings to be alive,
and to inspire others in understanding the joy of manifestation, following their own magnificent and creative path !”

Her name was Eleanor Cappelletti, but she called herself Cappi. She was born in Cleveland ,Ohio, U.S.A. in 1915.
She always wanted to be an an artist. A difficult vocation for a woman of her generation, and she didn’t get much support on that vocational choice from her family. But she was more than determined, and won a scholarship to the renowned Cleveland School of Art, and then on scholarship award again, she went on to study at the Art Students League in New York City.
She studied painting with the famous portraitist, Robert Brackman, Instructor Emeritus, disciple of the great Robert Henri, whose quote is above. Cappi became his assistant for all four years, which was a great honor and testimony to her young talent.
She also studied with Rafael Soyer, and Howard Trafton, whose teachings in color, design , and pattern she used all of her life, in the various mediums and works she produced in her long career.

I would like to show and to share Cappi’s work with the world, and am taking this opportunity to talk a bit about her art and painting.
She excelled in watercolor, and did portraiture, flowers, and landscape . In oils, which were her primary medium, some of her  favorite subjects ranged from still life, to figurative, and to abstract realism.
I have included just two of her paintings above.
Living in Westport CT in the 60’s and 70’s she loved the New England barns and roosters, as well as the inlets on the Sound and the fall foliage.
When she moved to New Mexico in the 80’s until her death in 1992,  she resumed her passion for the figurative, and did many paintings of the Indian dancers and the Mexican people.
For more of Cappi’s artwork and a short video on her life in photographs, please see her Squidoo Lens here,
Please contact me for additional info on Cappi’s paintings that are available for purchase.
Thank you for reading this,
Sincerely,
Gemma
gemmainsinna@libero.it

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One comment on “Cappi Insinna, her life and works

  1. Gemma, “A Great Artist”

    I loved your Mom so much. Until recently with my Mother’s death, I was unaware how much Cappi reminded me of my Mom. I owned, at the time I knew Cappi, a Gallery in Albuquerque call Day Star International Galleries. While spending time at her apartment I purchased for my own collection one of Cappi’s paintings call “Leona” she said it was Henri Matisse model Leona that would visit when she was living in New York. What a great tribute you have put on the web about your sweet Mother. I only met you once in New Mexico. I hope you are well and your life is as full as Cappi’s.

    Always in service,

    Don Thompson

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