GLOUCESTERSHIRE.- This summer, the Cape Ann Museum presents a special exhibition of works by contemporary artist Vincent Castagnacci. Notes from a Quarry focuses on Castagnacci’s drawings and paintings from the mid-2000s to the present, pulling in earlier works that reflect the strong influence Cape Ann has had—and continues to have—on the artist.

“All that I have become I owe to the first time I set foot on Cape Ann, and specifically Gloucester,” said Castagnacci. “For close to sixty years, I have lived with its presence in my life.”

Originally from Providence, Rhode Island, Castagnacci studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and with George Demetrios in Boston and Gloucester in the early 1960s. In 1964, he earned a BFA from Yale, and two years later an MFA from the same institution. It was through his work with Demetrios that Castagnacci came to know and love Cape Ann. For the past 40 years, the Castagnacci family has owned property on the backside of the Cape. The neighborhood, from Folly Cove’s rugged shoreline, out to Halibut Point and up into Dogtown, has provided Castagnacci with boundless inspiration.

“The Cape Ann Museum, is delighted with this presentation of Vincent Castagnacci’s work to continue its focus on contemporary practitioners inspired by Cape Ann”, said Oliver Barker, Museum Director. “Castagnacci through explorations of media, surface, pattern and texture illuminates a new way of looking at granite which is such a defining feature of Cape Ann’s history and our collective lived experience.”

Castagnacci began teaching art while studying at Yale and working at Southern Connecticut State College. He moved from there to Old Dominion University and since 1973, has served on the faculty of the University of Michigan. He has received numerous citations and awards over the course of his career including from the American Academy in Rome (1980). Castagnacci is currently Arthur F. Thurnau Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design.