Cindy Suffoletto

Cindy Suffoletto was born in Buffalo, New York in 1962 and studied art at Buffalo State. She developed a practice focused on sculpture, mixed media collage, and works on paper. She showed her work in group exhibitions in Western New York at the Upton Gallery at Buffalo State College and Hallwalls before moving to New York City with her partner, the artist Andrew Topolski, in the mid-1980s.

Suffoletto and Topolski shared a studio on Broadway in Brooklyn from the late ‘80s to the early ‘90s. Suffoletto’s work from this period, including sculpture and large-scale works on paper, focused on architectural and religious themes, from the design of Gothic cathedrals to the polylinguistic and ecumenical hybridization of the Palaeologan Renaissance. She exhibited this work in group shows at the Rotunda Gallery of the Brooklyn War Memorial and at the Galerie Schüppenhauer in Köln, Germany.

Suffoletto retreated from her own active studio practice in the early 90s as she focused on supporting Topolski’s career–as the household breadwinner, accountant, business manager, and confidant. She cataloged Topolski’s work, tracked and managed his sales, handled correspondence with collectors and gallerists, and coordinated outreach to dozens of corporate art buying programs. She returned to an active studio practice only after Topolski’s passing, focusing on oils and mixed-media work that drew from the themes and materials that surrounded her home in the Catskills hamlet of Callicoon, New York. She shared this work with close friends and family but made no effort to sell or exhibit it. She passed away in 2012 following a brief and precipitous illness.