Salvatore Pinto

Italian-born Salvatore Pinto immigrated with his family to America in 1909. He attended the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art (now the University of the Arts) and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and worked in various media including painting, printmaking, photography, theatrical and furniture design. His brothers Angelo and Biagio also became artists. After an automobile accident in 1950, Salvatore Pinto had to abandon most of his artistic techniques and devoted himself increasingly to photography, spending much of his time on Long Beach Island, New Jersey, until his death in 1966.

Besides painting, the Pintos also made prints. Salvatore became especially adept at wood engraving. In 1941, he, Angelo and a fourth brother, Joseph, established a photography studio, specializing in color work. Between 1930 and 1933 the three Pinto brothers received scholarships from the Barnes Foundation to travel and paint in southern France. During the 1930s the brothers often worked in a shared studio, traveled together and exhibited jointly, forging a close association between their respective bodies of work. All three brothers painted in both watercolors and oils, and Angelo was asked to teach painting at the Barnes Foundation in 1934. Starting in 1935, Salvatore and Angelo began designing sets and costumes for Catherine Littlefield, director and principal choreographer of the Littlefield Ballet (later called the Philadelphia Ballet).

Salvatore produced most of his oeuvre, predominantly prints and woodcuts, during the Great Depression concentrating primarily on portraits and landscapes or city scenes. His 1936 entry Beach Houses was an etching in the format 25 x 35 cm.