(New York 1919–2007)
Anche noi siamo America (Kore - manifestazione per la pace a New York), 1951, signed and dated, oil on canvas, 165 x 200 cm

Provenance:
European Private Collection (acquired in the 1960’s)

Literature:
L’Unità, 20 January 1951, p. 3 with ill.
Luigi Sansone, Salvatore Scarpitta Catalogue Raisonné, Milan 2005,
no. 113 with ill.

Exhibited:
Rome, Galleria di Roma, II Mostra d’arte contro le barbarie, 1951,
exh. cat. no. 47
Rome, Galleria Il Pincio, Scarpitta, 1951

Born in NYC to a Sicilian father and a Polish Russian mother, Salvatore Scarpitta grew up in the United States and moved to Rome where he attended the Academy of Fine Arts (Accademia di Belle Arti). First represented by the renowned Roman gallery La Tartaruga Scarpitta soon became one of Leo Castelli’s artists in his New York gallery.
The work .Anche noi siamo America ( Kore; Manifestazione per la Pace a NY) / We also are America (Kore: a march for Peace in NYC), was executed in 1951 while the artist lived in Italy.
The interesting aspects of this work are not only connected to the artist’s pictorial style that clearly demonstrate how his paint brushes anticipated the use of bandages that characterize his later works, but are mainly historical and political starting from the title.
In fact a cultural and scientific conference for world peace had recently been held in New York City sponsored by the National Council of Arts, Sciences and Professions. The Peace Campaign started out in the USA after the Peace Conference of Stockholm was held in March 1950. Since World War II the peace movement widespread throughout the world and its previously radical doctrines soon became a part of mainstream political discourse often mistaken for a tendency to support the Russian Communists and tracing the beginning of the Cold War.
By looking at this work by Salvatore Scarpitta few important subjects emerge:
-the problem of racial segregation in the USA, which heavily affected the population in many different ways ( school segregation, housing, transportation voting anti-miscegenation laws, Just to mention a few) an issue that still seems partly unsolved as today’s news daily remind us.
-The general demand for Peace represented by the word PEACE written in red and covered up by the word Kore in black which appears on the upper central area of the canvas.
The word Kore (Korea) seems to be hiding the concept of peace, the figure of an African American wearing a hat and holding an injured man symbolizes the idea of peace threatened by the presence of the armed police man that stands on the left side of the surface while people are marching.

This leads to the problem of the war against Korea between 1950 and 1953 which took away many lives of American soldiers soon after the end of World War 2.
The problem of the Korean war was widely felt among international artists during these years starting from Diego Rivera’s Nightmare of War, Dream of Peace the mural executed in Mexico City in 1951/52, Picasso’s fresco La Guerre et la Paix in Vallarius, France, started in 1948 and ended in 1955, or his painting kept in the Musee Picasso, titled Massacre in Korea executed in 1951.

The importance of Scarpitta’s work also stands in his two nationalities, he felt related to Italy where the Second World War was fought and where he attended the Academy of Fine Arts and to the United States where he grew up and from where many kids of his age were sent abroad to fight.
Representing a peace march held in the United States, and showing it in an exhibition held in Rome, Scarpitta described a political situation unknown to many Italians at the time. Italy was still dealing with the aftermath of World War 2 and the loss of too many lives, people wanted to forget about the war and the United States represented the conquerors, those who had freed Italy from the enemy. The reality of American soldiers sent to fight another war was not so well known.
The exhibition held in Rome in which this painting was included was titled “against all wars” and illustrated in the left winged newspaper L’Unità that dedicated the entire page 3 ( known as the newspaper’s cultural section) to it. The subtitles of the newspaper page mention the threat of the police intervention against the show considered a threat to the political balance of the time.
This painting is also illustrated on the invitation card to the show, being the most representative of the concept of peace.