Joseph Piccillo

Joseph Piccillo was an internationally recognized artist and professor in the Art Education Department at Buffalo State College. He received both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Art Education at the State University College at Buffalo, where he has been an inspirational professor, notably having Robert Longo as a student who continued in Piccillo’s tradition of creating large scale drawings in charcoal. He helped establish Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, where co-founders Cindy Sherman, Robert Longo, Charles Clough, Nancy Dwyer, and Michael Zwack started their notable, international art careers.

Piccillo was a man of few words whose work has been exhibited extensively across the U.S. and in Europe, many years being represented by the Betsy Rosenfield Gallery in Chicago. Grants and awards include a purchase award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, 4 SUNY Research Fellowships, CAPS Fellowship, and National Endowment for the Arts. Among publications, his art was reviewed by Reagan Upshaw in Art in America in 1980 and by Grace Glueck for the New York Times in 1984. His work has been shown nationally and in Belgium, England, and Switzerland. He had solo exhibitions to great acclaim in the Burchfield Penney Art Center (most recently in Power in 2020) and Albright-Knox Art Gallery (Joseph Piccillo: Drawing on Canvas and Paper in 1981). A recent partial list of collectors includes 18 public collections, such as the Art Institute of Chicago, Brooklyn Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, and Albright-Knox Art Gallery; and 29 corporate collections, such as IBM, Guess? Jeans, and Microsoft. His artwork appeared on television in "Columbo" and in films, including "High Fidelity" and "Hannibal."

Joe Piccillo passed away on September 26, 2022, his obituary was posted November 4, 2022: https://buffalonews.com/obituaries/features/joseph-piccillo-85-buffalo-artist-widely-acclaimed-for-bold-images-of-horses/article_18828b94-5989-11ed-bcd2-a3996a59c739.html