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Frank Melega was a member of the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh, and although he never won any awards at the annual shows of the organization, his work did garner him a few honorable mentions in reviews of the exhibitions. Dorothy Kantner, critic for the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph in the 1940s, included Melega in her review of the 1940 show in a paragraph headed "entries giving us special pleasure," which also mention fellow Steidle Collection artists Roy Hilton, Clarence McWilliams and Louise Pershing.
In a review of the 34th annual, Clarence Carter, vice president of the Associated Artists, also mentions Melega's work. His portrait of a miner, Joe Petko, is set in Grindstone, a small mining town in southwestern Pennsylvania, located a few miles north of Uniontown. The miner is shown with the tools of his trade: pick-axe, a hardhat with light, and his miner's pail, used to hold water and lunch. The artist places the figure against a backdrop of the miner's environment, in the distance is are the houses of the workers, and farther back stands the structure of the coal mine. Melega succeeds in imparting a sense of dignity in this portrait of the American worker; dressed in overalls with his face and massive hands blackened by dirt and coal dust, the monumental figure of the miner appears to be as timeless and solid as the earth itself.
Visit the Frank L. Melega Art Museum in Pittsburgh and online at their website.
Sources:
"Optimism Keynote of 30th Annual by Pittsburgh Artists," Art Digest, vol. 14, February 15, 1940, p. 12.
Carter, Clarence Holbrook, "Thirty-Fourth Annual in Review," Carnegie Magazine, vol. 17, February 1944, pp. 259-266.
Illustrated in Edward Steidle, Mineral Forecast 2000 A.D., The Pennsylvania State College, 1952, p. x.
This document copyright © 1996, Eric John Schruers