Artist Profile

Antony Zito is an Italian-American portrait painter, sculptor, muralist and musician. He has been a major proponent of independent art in New York City’s Lower East Side since the early 1990s and in 2002 he opened Zito Studio Gallery on Ludlow Street in Manhattan. Zito’s portrait paintings are featured in the films of Jim Jarmusch, including a scene with Meg and Jack White (The White Stripes) in Coffee and Cigarettes (2003), and in Broken Flowers (2005). Zito is Director/Co-founder Emeritus of 4heads Inc, the arts non-profit that has, since 2008, hosted Portal Art Fair in Lower Manhattan and Governors Island, hailed by the New York Times as the “Art Fair for the 99 Percent”.

Zito left NYC in 2011 to return home to East Granby, CT where he has become more involved in the Connecticut art scene. He is Associate Director of Parkville Art Gallery in Hartford where he is in charge of curation and guiding the aesthetic vision of the exhibitions. His classes at West Hartford Art League are booked to capacity and his mural work is propagating across interior and exterior walls throughout NY and New England. 

Zito’s work branches out from traditional portrait painting, divining the implied narrative inherent in his use of found materials and mixed media. The layering of image and object coalesce into a theater of allegory, leading the viewer to unearth a meaning of their own. 

Zito’s work has been exhibited and collected throughout the US, UK, Mexico, Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Belgium and Japan. He is currently directing a documentary film centered on the legendary Mars Bar of the East Village in the 1990s and early 2000s.

PARKVILLE ART GALLERY
Antony Zito is the Associate Director of Parkville Art Gallery working with founder and Gallery Director, Miguel Matos. In this capacity it is his role to guide the aesthetic vision of the gallery. Antony works with Miguel to curate the exhibitions which are installed in conjunction with the exhibiting artists.

Their goal for the gallery is to bring new energy to the Hartford art scene with distinctive curation and museum quality presentation in an accessible space that is open to the community at large. The gallery doubles as an event space and PAG makes a creative backdrop for board meetings, book clubs, networking, gathering, etc and draw exposure to the artists on exhibit.

"Zito is one of my very favorite New York artists, partly because he thinks of himself as an artisan (he likes to make paintings on commission) and partly because he's just a really fine and inventive painter. I have two of his paintings, one is a portrait of Lee Marvin (from "Coffee and Cigarettes") and one of the Ethiopian master musician Mulatu Astatke (from "Broken Flowers"). I value them greatly. I hope for a few more in the future. Hats off to Zito!"      -- Jim Jarmusch

Tour Location: 1429 Park Street

Website: zitogallery.com

Click here to see the 25th Anniversary Video Retrospective produced by CT Public Broadcasting!