Tony Siani played a pivotal role in forging the path for figurative painting in New York City in the 70s and 80s.

 

Although a part of the abstract expressionism movement in the 50s and 60s, courtesy of mentors Clyfford Still and Richard Diebenkorn, he became increasingly dissatisfied with the mainstream art world and the new era of hard-line modernism.

 

He turned instead to figurative painting, a small but growing movement. Alongside close friends Paul Georges, Howard Kalish, Larry Faden, and Sam Thurston, he helped to found the Alliance of Figurative Artists, a space where fellow ‘insurgent artists’ could discuss their work and solicit feedback.  As part of his work with the Alliance, he would go on to be a founding member of the Bowery Gallery.

 

A strong believer in the importance of politics in art, Siani was a proponent of the concept of Marxist self-criticism.  He purported that the clearest path towards great art involved constant scrutiny and examination of both meaning and form.

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He, alongside other intellectually inclined artists argued at the Alliance meetings that for figuration to be a force in the art world, artists would have to start taking responsibility for both the formal success or failure of their works and the content the works expressed, whether intended by the artist or not. 

 

This led to a major Ideological difference between Siani and Georges, fracturing the Alliance in a struggle known as “The Wars”. Georges disliked Siani’s constant questioning, and pushed back stating “I want to be free to do whatever I want. I don’t want to have to do something that is meaningful.”

 

Things reached a peak in 1972 when, as a final dig, Paul Georges exhibited a painting titled The Mugging of the Muse depicting Tony and ideological allies ready to attack “The Muse” (modeled on George’s daughter). After a nationwide court battle that lasted until the 80s, their friendship never recovered and “soured the intellectuals on the Alliance.”

 

Siani went on to lead the more intimate “Biblical Painters Group,” which included John Bradford, Richard McBee, and Jack Silberman. The group was born from the idea that the greatest crime was to not compose the picture; to not develop the idea visually, but instead to illustrate it. Out of this intensity, over many years, came a transformation of the artists' visual and verbal frame of reference from a critique of Marxism to a shared vision of the seminal role of Jewish Monotheism.

 

In pursuit of that aim, he frequently moved from cubist conventions to chiaroscuro, to tessellation, to multiple panel painting (augmentations), to action painting, and back again. The driving principle was to compose and narrate simultaneously. A particular style was adopted or dropped as a consequence of its usefulness, never as an end in itself.

 

These paintings, meetings, ideas, and friendships were the catalysts for numerous solo and group shows from the 70s until Siani’s death in 1995.