Neptune
1953


On a Planet
1953


Planetary Scene
1953


Space Farmers
1953

BIOGRAPHY

Victor Gatto was a violent man during much of his life. He was born in New York's Greenwich Village in 1893, before it became a fashionable residential district. His mother died when he was four years old and his alcoholic father placed him in an orphanage. A pivotal and vividly-recalled event was the visit of President Teddy Roosevelt to Gatto's school when he was seven, during which "TR" praised the young boy's blackboard drawings. As a young man, Gatto was a feather-weight boxer and small-time criminal who did time in prison, then served in the Navy until dishonorably discharged for brawling. He worked as a plumber and steamfitter until a hernia disabled him in 1937. At that time he was living in an apartment next to that of the painters Willem and Elaine de Kooning, who encouraged him to take up art. This he did, but with the same antagonistic energy that characterized the rest of his life, working around the clock and at times almost puncturing the canvas with the thrust of his brushstrokes. For relaxation, he took walks—long walks, in fact, sometimes as much as 450 miles. Although Gatto saw a measure of popularity and success during his lifetime, he was periodically broke, and when he died in 1965 in Miami, he was penniless and still a bachelor.

BOOKS

The End is Near! Roger Manley. Illustrated. Bio.