GABRIEL JOSEPH CAPUANO
(February 11, 1945 – March 21, 1994)

Birth

Born February 11, 1945 in Providence, Rhode Island
The third of five sons of Louise Golini Capuano, homemaker, a first-generation American of French
Canadian and northern Italian ancestry, and Vincenzo (Jimmy) Capuano, taxi driver, son of immigrants
from southern Italy
Parents had little to no formal education
Father died when Capuano was ten; mother remarried when he was sixteen

Design is Everything

Grew up on Smith Hill, a densely populated mixed neighborhood of firstand
second-generation Americans of Irish, Polish, Armenian, Jewish descent
St. Patrick’s School, Smith Hill
Nathaniel Greene Junior High School
After his father’s death, already demonstrating characteristics that would
later identify him as an outsider, Capuano transitioned from a predominately
Irish Catholic elementary school to a public junior high school where he
was placed in an “ungraded” class for non-traditional learners.
He tested high on IQ tests requested by a music teacher who recognized
his inappropriate class placement, and was finally placed in an appropriate
class, but he regularly skipped school and was suspended before the age
of sixteen.
Officially dropped out of school at sixteen; never attended high school
Began experimenting with opiates at age seventeen
Capuano spent most of his time on the streets before and after his mother remarried, earning money by selling newspapers late into the night on an urban city corner, at bus and train stations and a local boxing
arena, exposing him to daytime and nocturnal imagery that later appears in his paintings and drawings.
Various brushes with the law beginning in 1960

Prison

1964 Sentenced to two years in maximum security, Adult Correctional Institutions, Rhode Island Department of Corrections, for drug-related activities at age nineteen In the mid-’60s, prisons in Rhode Island (home of Rhode Island School of Design) offered classes in art and literature as well as the more traditional educational programs. When Capuano’s talent became obvious, the assistant warden allowed him to spend time painting and reading in his single cell instead of transferring him to a dormitory setting as protocol required, thus beginning a semi-monastic existence dedicated to painting, reading, and self-education. Released from prison in 1966

Mentors

Three professionals were involved in the prison arts program: Gene van Wye, art restorer and teacher;
Sid Moore, artist and Rhode Island School of Design instructor; and Eugene “Gene” Tonoff, artist and
gallerist — all of whom realized Capuano showed an unusually strong talent for drawing and painting.
Under their encouragement and influence, Capuano became seriously involved in painting and began
reading Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, Freud and Jung among other writers and thinkers.
Gene Tonoff, a well-established Providence personality whose gallery exhibited respected artists —
generally Rhode Island School of Design professors and established graduates — created an exhibition
of prisoners’ art, and The Providence Sunday Journal featured Capuano’s work on its cover. When he was
released from prison in 1966, Capuano’s work was regularly included in Tonoff’s group exhibitions, where
his work began to catch serious attention from Bradford Swan, a well-respected New England art critic.

Marriage

1967 Married Susan Diamond
Susan Diamond first encountered Capuano’s work at a Tonoff exhibition before unexpectedly meeting the artist himself several months later, when she was introduced to him in an offbeat bar in 1966. They began living together in spring 1967 and married in late November.
An English, and later math, teacher in urban high schools, Diamond committed to supporting Capuano financially, providing him with a home and studio and art supplies and books, so he would be free to work on his art.
1994 After his death, she began promoting and protecting Capuano’s art, starting with the Providence City Hall retrospective, opening a gallery in 2005. In 2006 Susan Diamond-Capuano moved to Brazil, returning to the United States in the summers, and began showing Gabe Capuano’s work at the Anchor Inn Beach House in Provincetown, Massachusetts in 2015.

Exhibitions

A self-taught Outsider Artist with no formal training, Gabriel Capuano’s work began catching the
attention of local critics from his first post-prison showing at age twenty.
1967 Tonoff Gallery, Providence, Rhode Island, group show: “The best painting in the show, for me,
was Gabriel Capuano’s haunting, strictly personalized vision, ‘Through the Doorway.’” (Bradford Swan,
The Providence Sunday Journal)
1968 Tonoff Gallery, Providence, Rhode Island, group show: “The small Capuano oil, ‘Seated Figure,’
is one of the best things this painter has done. It’s amazing how he can cram into such a simple statement
such a complexity of personal values.” (Bradford Swan, The Providence Sunday Journal)
1968 to 1970 Part-time art instructor at the prestigious Mary C. Wheeler School for Girls; helped create
Wheeler Gallery (Capuano had been recommended for the position by a local art dealer and selected
solely on the basis of his art; other candidates were graduate painting students from Rhode Island School
of Design.)
1969 Wheeler Gallery, Providence, Rhode Island: “Capuano is still developing and everything indicates
he is going to go someplace. If he does it is because he is a man who has lived and to compare him
with painters who are playing at living is to make him seem richer and them poorer.” (Bradford Swan,
The Providence Sunday Journal)
1972 Tonoff Gallery, Providence, Rhode Island, two-person show: “Capuano’s drawing style has fascinated
me for several years. Every now and then I think I see traces of Rembrandt’s ability and style in them.”
(Bradford Swan, The Providence Sunday Journal)
1978 – 1980 Capuano taught at School One, where he had a solo exhibition.
1979 School One, Providence, Rhode Island, solo show: “His pictures have more raw vitality …
particularly in his small ink drawings he freezes tiny chips of experience that ring with verisimilitude.”
(Edward Sozanski, The Providence Sunday Journal)
The series of successful exhibits, new milieus and social contacts clashed with past experiences and
created psychological strain for Capuano. He gradually resumed using substances such as marijuana
and LSD until opiate drug addiction once more overcame him. He continued working sporadically
throughout that period, but ceased showing for almost a decade.
1991 Modern Times Gallery, East Providence, Rhode Island, solo show: “Capuano seems most at home
using (crayons)… a medium rarely associated with serious art (but) perfectly suited to his nervous,
expressionistic drawing style.” (Bill Van Siclen, The Providence Sunday Journal)
1992 “Pride and Perseverance: A Retrospective of Art in Rhode Island” a featured exhibition of the
Festival of Historic Houses hosted by the Providence Preservation Society
1993 Ute Stebisch Gallery, Lenox, Massachusetts, group show
Gabriel Capuano spent much of his life in conflict, dealing with alcohol and drug addictions, while
constantly creating through it all. His art was both a refuge and means of expressing his unique vision
of his city, its inhabitants and friends and family, in addition to very personal visions unlocked from
his psyche. He saw everything and captured it with his unique ability to produce these images in any
and all mediums.

Posthumous Retrospectives

1994 Providence City Hall Commemorative Exhibit
1994 Bert Gallery, Providence, Rhode Island, show of pen and ink works alongside “Providence
Printmakers and Their Collections”
1995 The Gabriel Capuano Art Scholarship is established at Nathaniel Greene Middle School to be
awarded to an older, struggling student showing significant artistic talent.
2005 DIG Fine Art, Providence, Rhode Island
2015 Gallery Z / Studio Z, Federal Hill, Providence, Rhode Island
2016 – present, Anchor Inn Beach House, Provincetown, Massachusetts, ongoing rotating exhibition
of house artist

Collections

Work in collections in London, England; Berlin, Germany; Los Angeles, California; New York City;
Delaware; New Mexico; and other New England states

Death

March 21, 1994 died suddenly, at home, at age forty-nine, of a probable heart attack
Buried in Swan Point Cemetery, Providence, Rhode Island