LaborArts

Ralph Fasanella
Iceman Crucified #1, 1948
oil on canvas, 26 x 14 inches

In this first in a series of four portraits of the artist’s father, the iceman’s pose is stiff, and the crown of thorns has been replaced by the tools of the trade—a pair of ice tongs.

Pietro di Donato’s 1939 novel Christ in Concrete “broke me away from realism,” Fasanella recalled in an interview with historian Paul D’Ambrosio. “It gave me the right to use symbols of people.”