Ettore de Grazia - Education

Education

With almost no possessions, DeGrazia caught a ride headed for Tucson. For fifteen dollars, he enrolled at the University of Arizona. He played his trumpet at night, and dug ditches in the day, in order to pay for his classes. He studied music and received his first Bachelors in Art Education. His second Bachelors was in Fine Arts. Ted would eventually go back to school to earn a Master's degree in the 1945.

In 1936, Ted met Alexandra Diamos while attending classes at the University of Arizona, and that same year, they married. Her father was a business man who owned many of the largest movie picture theaters in Southern Arizona. One of the theaters was the Lyric theater, located in Bisbee. Alexandra and Ted moved to Bisbee. Ted worked his father-in-law's theater. The couple had three children Lucia Anite, Nicholas Domenic, and Kathleen Louise.

Although Ted was making a living, he was not happy with this work. Any money he could save went towards art supplies. Any extra time he had went to his art. He was searching, trying to find his own style. In 1941 Arizona Highways Magazine began to publish DeGrazia's images. He met many other famous, and soon-to-be famous, artists. And in 1942 he studied under Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco, assisting with murals at the Palacio Nacional and the Hospital de Jesus. During this period, America was enforcing the draft for WWII. Diego Rivera wrote a letter to the United States government attempting to buy time for DeGrazia in order for him to complete his apprenticeship.

September 2, 1942
"To Whom It May Concern:
This will introduce Mr. DeGrazia of Arizona, a young artist of promising future who wishes to come to Mexico to study the technique of frescoes. Because his work interests me I am willing to take him to work under me. I will appreciate a military leave of some sixty or ninety days from the selective service board, or whatever is necessary to enable him to come. He will work under me personally in my present project which I am executing at the National Palace of Mexico City.
This favor may be a contribution to the culture of our united nations. In appreciation of whatever can be done, I remain,
Sincerely,

— Diego Rivera",

Whether the US government received the letter and listened to Rivera, is not known, but DeGrazia was never drafted either. The two artists sponsored an exhibit of his paintings at Palacio de Bellas Artes and the young artist was featured in Mexico City's Hoy Magazine. This was Ted DeGrazia's first big exhibition. Rivera had this to say about the young, new artist: "I have seen the paintings that Mr. Ettore De Grazzia brought to Mexico from Arizona as well as the ones that he did here in Mexico. The paintings greatly interested me because of his brilliant artistic gift and his personal sentiment, so original that it prevails through some strange influences, perhaps unconscious. The fugue in the execution of his painting, his acute, romantic and exalted observation and his feeling fro proportion give the certainty that when developed as an artist, De Grazzia will become one prominent personality in American art. Because of this, anything that may be done to extend him assistance, will be for the benefit of the culture of the United States."

He returned to the University of Arizona, studying under Katherine Kitt. In 1944, DeGrazia was hired by Lou Witzeman, editor and chief at the University, for a mural project in exchange for the cost of supplies to paint it. Witzeman gave him the freedom to paint whatever subject he wanted in a portion of the Old Main building located on campus. Since this mural painting took place two years post his apprenticeship under Diego Rivera, DeGrazia chose to paint a politically based mural. The mural was titled, "Power of the Press." A writer for the Arizona Wildcat newspaper wrote an article in regards to this mural. "Bottles of paint, turpentine and tequila surround an artist lying on his back atop scaffolding. It is the spring of 1944 and American GIs are overseas fighting the axis powers. The artist strokes his brush on the wall about two stories tall and 15 feet wide until a mural begins to emerge. Night after night, the painter pieces together his puzzle. The colors are dark, as are the images. Skeletons, mortarboards, books and the apocalypse fill the cinder block canvas." His mural depicted "skulls topped with mortarboards peer(ing) at an open hand holding the flame of knowledge reaching out of a pile of books. The skull represent the people searching for knowledge. A figure, half machine- half skeleton, resides atop the four horses of the apocalypse, trampling over the mask of happiness. The mask of tragedy remains untouched. The figure hold the World in its right hand; from its should hangs a long sheet simple titled "News." In the far-left corner stand sic skeletons donning grading robes...starving professors hang by their necks from the fingertips of a skeletal hand as the four horseman gallop over snakes slithering through books." The arts department at the University claimed they did not give permission for Witzeman and DeGrazia to paint the mural on campus property. "That summer while the rest of us were in blissful ignorance, " Witzeman said, "someone came in with five gallons of whitewash and covered it up. It was terrible." The only evidence that the mural once existed is the memories from family and friends and one oil on canvas DeGrazia painted for himself- a small excerpt from the original mural and kept at the DeGrazia Gallery In the Sun.

Ted DeGrazia's Master's Thesis was a sixty paged paper titled: "Art and Its Relation to Music In Music Education." "The purpose of this thesis is to establish an analogy between music and abstract painting, showing the relationship between the elements of music and painting by setting forth a method whereby music can better be understood and appreciated by the projection of its moods and feelings into another dimension."

He built the 'Color Machine.' This machine would measure the different levels of tone and pitch when music was being played. With each level, DeGrazia assigned specific emotions, shapes, and colors. He also created the 'Color Music Pattern Test.' The test was a single sheet of paper that had many rows of empty squares. He gave the test to over 350 students at the University. He sat each student down and had them listen to music, music like, Stravinsky's Nightingale, and Beethoven's Symphony #8. He would stop the music in intervals and ask each student what colors and shapes they saw. In the empty squares, they would draw what shapes they had seen.

In the archives, at the DeGrazia Foundation, there are oral histories from some of the students who were given the Color Music Pattern Test. They all said the same thing. At first, they could not understand how they were going to be able to see shapes and colors. But the more they listened to the symphonies, the more the shapes and colors took form. They could literately 'see the music.' DeGrazia did a series of abstract paintings based from the results of these psychological, audio, and visual experimental tests. Incredibly, from these results Ted DeGrazia was able to 'paint' these symphonies from the information the students had given him. They are abstract wonders of line, shape, and color. This remarkable collection is stored at the Gallery In the Sun.