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‘Bad Boys’ director George Gallo to exhibit art at the Butler An artist at heart
By GUY D’ASTOLFO
George Gallo might have taken the most atypical road trip ever by a teenager.
Before he was a movie director (“Wise Guys,” “Bad Boys,” “Midnight Run”) and screenwriter, Gallo first expressed himself as an artist. As a teenager in Port Chester, N.Y., he would study the works of his favorite painters and noticed that many of these works were hanging in the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown.
“When I got my driver’s license [in 1974], the first real road trip I took was to Youngstown to go to the Butler museum,” said Gallo in a phone interview from his California home. “When I told my father where I was going, he said, ‘Are you crazy?’
“I wandered around the Butler and looked at the great paintings ... the Vonnoh [Robert Vonnoh’s “Flanders Field”] painting with the poppies ... and I felt kind of a kinship [with the Butler]. Painting always seemed magical to me, how a person can take a blank canvas and make you feel something emotionally. I’ve devoted much of my life trying to figure that out.”
Gallo become renowned for his movies, but he never stopped painting. He developed his own unique style of bright landscapes, and his art hangs in many galleries and private collections, including those of Robert DeNiro, Meg Ryan, Bruce Hornsby, Gary Sinise, Armin Mueller-Stahl and Mel Gibson.
On Sunday, Gallo’s art career will come full circle. That’s when he will return to the Butler for the opening of his first museum exhibition.
Titled “George Gallo: Contemporary Impressionist,” the show will run through June 12.
DIRECTOR’S REMARKS
Louis A. Zona, director of the Butler, calls Gallo “an American original” in his introductory notes to the exhibition.
“Gallo is an extraordinarily talented painter, as this exhibition reveals,” wrote Zona. “On every level, his paintings can be seen as a search for visual perfection and an excursion into the wonders of the American landscape. ... His vision of the land explodes with color and palette knife application, clear references to the American brand of expressionism. He offers us a feast for the eye at every turn.”
Zona told The Vindicator that he would describe Gallo as a neo-Impressionist because his work is definitely about light. “He approaches the landscape the same as the French painters of the Impressionist era.”
Zona continued his praise for Gallo in his written notes:
“Art which has endured through time is both highly innovative and skillfully accomplished. The landscapes of George Gallo certainly meet that criteria. A master of the film art, he is also a painter whose work excites the senses and makes us realize that quality art, like a masterful film, will extend and excite through the ages.”
Getting selected for an exhibition at the Butler is extra special for Gallo because of his teenage history with the museum. He is sincerely humbled.
“This is a dream come true,” he said. “I thought I’d be a guy who dies before they find out about my art. But to get recognized like this is an honor, and I’m moved that Mr. Zona would do this show.”
PERSONAL HISTORY
In addition to being a screenwriter-movie director (he is currently writing a horror piece for Showtime) and an artist, Gallo has also long been a musician. But working nights was not for him, and might have hastened his embrace of painting landscapes.
“I am primarily a landscape painter, but I’m not 100 percent sure sometimes if the reason is because I like to paint, or because I like being outdoors,” he said.
“I used to play sax in clubs, but I hated being indoors and in the dark, and sleeping during the day. I was a pretty good musician, but it was not my kind of lifestyle.
“Something happens when I’m outside, this communion with nature, and it gets very spiritual. I love capturing that moment – what I am seeing and, more importantly, what I am feeling.”
When Gallo was in his 20s, he devoted most of his time to painting, but then found himself drawn into movie making. “My parents were just starting to wrap their head around the fact that I was going to be a painter, and then I said, ‘I’m going to make movies.’ And they said, ‘Now you’re really cuckoo.’”
He moved to Hollywood with little money but a large sense of adventure and started to write movie scripts. “My script for ‘Wise Guys’ got produced when I was 28 or 29,” said Gallo. “Then I wrote ‘Midnight Run’ when I was 30. I now had a career as a screenwriter, and then I started to direct movies. But I never stopped painting.”
The income from his film endeavors gave Gallo the financial comfort to pursue the type of art he wanted. “Most painters have to do it to pay the rent, but I got lucky,” he said.
He started to amass hundreds of his canvases. “We have a three-car garage, and it’s filled with my paintings,” he said.
Gallo wanted to keep his painting private, but after he won some prizes, people took notice. Gallery showings in New York followed. His film “Local Color” – which is actually his life story – earned him an invitation to screen it at a prestigious gathering by American Artist magazine.
At this time, Gallo befriended well-known artist David Lafell. “He came to my house, looked into my garage and said, ‘This is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.’ [Lafell] went through my work and told me, ‘A lot of this is really pretty spectacular, and it’s a crime you are not putting it into the world.’ So he started helping me get it into galleries.”
When Zona of the Butler found out about Gallo’s Impressionist work, he asked if he’d be interested in doing a full exhibition at the Youngstown museum.
“[Zona] said, ‘Do you have 70 or so paintings?’ and I said, ‘You have no idea!,’” said Gallo, with a laugh.
ON HIS LANDSCAPES
Gallo talked about his colorful landscape paintings, which will be prominent in his upcoming exhibition.
“I try to push them as far as I can without being garish,” he said, referring to his use of strong color. “I tend to paint early in the morning or late in the day, and you get those rich colors because the sun is low. There are long shadows and orange-y light.”
Many of his landscapes were painted in Pennsylvania – the same place as one of his art heroes, Andrew Wyeth.
“I go back east a lot to paint,” he said. “Some were done in California, but most were painted on the East Coast ... Pennsylvania. I have a love affair with Pennsylvania. I feel like I am at home there.”
With his financial success in Hollywood, and a long marriage to his wife (32 years and counting), Gallo’s pastoral paintings are indicative of a man who is at peace.
“All of these things are good for my frame of mine,” he said. “Without getting on a soapbox, the world can be sad, tragic and ugly at times, but I try to keep the art part away from that. There is enough of that, and I don’t want to contribute to it.
“It would seem like a crime to devote your life to expressing yourself, and then roll around in the garbage.”