A Reading of Leo Politi's A Boat for Peppe!!

Mar 20, 2019 662

A fun afternoon for the entire family! Italian American Museum of Los Angeles - 644 North Main Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012. Saturday, March 30, 2019 at 3:00 pm. Recommended for children ages 4-12. RSVP HERE! [email protected] or (213) 485-8432

About Leo Politi: Italian American artist and award-winning author Leo Politi wrote and illustrated over twenty children’s books as well as other works intended for adults. Published in 1950, A Boat for Peppe explores the adventures of a Sicilian American boy in California who is the son of a fisherman. With Peppe’s help, readers learn about the cultural tradition of blessing fishing boats at the beginning of the fishing season each year.

This free public program is designed for children and their families and is presented in conjunction with the Italian American Museum of Los Angeles’ current temporary exhibition, Leo Politi’s Los Angeles: Works of Love and Protest, which showcases a collection of original art by Politi, who is best known as the “Artist of the City of Angels.”

For most of his artistic career, Los Angeles served as Politi’s muse. He consistently demonstrated a love for the region’s diverse cultures and a reverence for its history. Politi’s work proves truly avant garde in that it predated the multicultural movement by decades. During a time when many historic neighborhoods were being erased or transformed, Politi was among the lone advocates of preservation. He captured Los Angeles enclaves, landmarks, and communities in his art and writing, suspending them in time. Through a series of rarely exhibited works spanning sixty years, Leo Politi’s Los Angeles: Works of Love and Protest transports audiences to bygone eras—Watts in the late 1960s, and San Pedro during the apex of the fishing industry—along with forever altered places, including the forgotten neighborhood of Bunker Hill, and World War II-era downtown Los Angeles. Visitors will be able to view the exhibition during the book reading.

About the exhibition: Leo Politi’s Los Angeles: Works of Love and Protest presents a collection of original art by beloved Italian American artist and Caldecott Award-winning author Leo Politi. Through a series of rarely exhibited works spanning sixty years, Leo Politi’s Los Angeles: Works of Love and Protest transports audiences to bygone eras—Watts in the late 1960s, and San Pedro during the apex of the fishing industry—along with forever altered places, including the forgotten neighborhood of Bunker Hill, and World War II-era downtown Los Angeles.

SOURCE: Italian American Museum of Los Angeles

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