Church auctions tend to be comfortably similar. You can bid on tickets to a Mets or Yankees game or a weekend at a parishioner’s getaway place in the Hamptons, among other things. These auctions bring church communities together and raise money for worthy causes.
The parish of Our Lady of Perpetual Help-St. Catharine’s will run a different kind of auction next weekend (April 25-26), an exhibition and sale of paintings by local artist Joe DiCarlo (1940-2021) to raise money for an elevator allowing the elderly to access the church’s parish hall.
The auction is the brainchild of the artist’s sister, Norine DiCarlo who–like her late brother–spent much of her life in Pelham. She inherited scores of his paintings as well as his journals and poetry. Joe DiCarlo, who never married, was a devout Catholic and his Christian faith shines through much of his work, his sister says.
After storing her brother’s works for five years, Norine DiCarlo decided to donate some of his paintings to the parish, where they could be sold at auction and the proceeds used for the installation of an elevator connecting the OLPH church, which is ADA-accessible, to the parish hall in the basement, which is not.
“We want to highlight Joe’s life and work as an inspiration to those struggling with life’s challenges, especially those with a disability or chronic illness,” Norine DiCarlo wrote in a note explaining the purpose of the auction. “And we want to contribute, in a concrete way, to a project that will help such persons to fully participate in parish life and to flourish, as he did.”
Monsignor Thomas Petrillo, pastor of the OLPH-St. Catharine’s parish, loved the idea and encouraged DiCarlo to pursue it. He even suggested the title for the auction, “Our hearts are restless,” from the famous line about God in St. Augustine’s “Confessions”: “Our heart is restless until it rests in you.”
The auction of Joe DiCarlo’s paintings begins on Friday, April 24 at 9 AM online and runs until 4 PM on Sunday, April 26. Bidders can view DiCarlo’s paintings on the 32auctions website, and attend an exhibition of the 27 works at the OLPH gym on Saturday evening from 6-8 PM and Sunday from 9 AM to 4 PM. The gymnasium does not promise the ambience of auction houses like Christie’s and Sotheby’s, but it does have free parking, as well as wine and cheese on Saturday evening, and coffee and pastries on Sunday.
Like most artists, DiCarlo’s work shows an evolution over his career. But Joe’s evolution was sudden instead of gradual. After establishing himself as a talented painter in the 1970s and ’80s, he suffered a stroke in 1996, at the age of 55, leaving him with expressive aphasia and paralyzation in his right hand. Over the years that followed, DiCarlo taught himself how to draw, paint, and write with his left hand. According to his sister, DiCarlo felt he was praising God through his art. Some of his finest works came in the years after the stroke, she said, painted in a dramatically different style from what had come before.
Next week’s auction will feature works from both phases of the artist’s career.
Joe DiCarlo was born in 1940 in the Bronx, and attended Fordham University as an undergraduate. He spent his junior year in Paris studying at the Sorbonne. According to his sister, it was during this time that he became acquainted with the art of Georges Rouault, the French expressionist whose work exerted a strong influence on what would become Joe’s own style of painting.
After college, DiCarlo worked as a feature writer for the Herald Statesman in Yonkers. Later he studied drawing and painting at the Arts Student League in Manhattan and apprenticed under Alfredo Crimi. DiCarlo began to dedicate himself to creating artwork, and writing poetry, and short stories, but he still needed a way to support himself, so he became a grammar school teacher in Spanish Harlem. Mixing his love of the arts with teaching, he would have his pupils create renditions of Van Gogh’s Starry Night and Monet’s Waterlilies. He would also play songs on the guitar. “The kids loved him because he was multi-talented,” his sister said.
In the 1970s, DiCarlo sold 10 of his pieces to Cabrini Medical Center in New York City. However, after the center’s closing in 2008, the paintings disappeared, his sister said. In the late 1970’s, he sold another painting–a portrait of the Old Testament figure Job in the company of his three friends–to advertising executive John di Gianni for $500.
In 1993, some of Joe’s paintings were featured in an exhibit called “Art of the Soul” in a gallery in New Rochelle. In 1995, his work was in an exhibit at the Rye Art Center.
Then came the stroke, which should have ended his career. “As an artist and writer and musician (Joe also played and taught guitar) this was devastating,” his sister wrote in the note about the auction. “It would have been easy for him to give up in the face of such a challenge. However, with his deep faith in God and his exuberant love of life he was able to continue to express and develop his creative gifts. Indeed, some of his post-stroke works evidenced a greater depth of feeling, capable of touching the hearts of people from all backgrounds and persuasions, including those with religious faith and those with none.”
Throughout his career, DiCarlo painted and drew using a variety of materials, including markers, acrylic paint, and India ink. After his stroke, he especially loved to do mixed media. He liked to use acid-free paper, his sister said, as it prevents the art from yellowing.
In 2002, the New Rochelle Public Library put on an exhibition of his works, including paintings and drawings created after he suffered his stroke.
The upcoming auction features 27 of Joe’s paintings chosen by his sister and her husband based on value, general appeal, and how representative of they are of DiCarlo’s work. In addition to multiple portraits of Christ and his mother Mary, the auction will feature images of Malcolm X, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King and one of Ernest Hemingway titled, “Hemingway in Purgatory.”
The purpose of the auction is to raise money for an elevator so elderly and disabled parishioners can more easily reach the meeting rooms and offices in the lower floor of the church, a cause that Norine DiCarlo said would resonate with brother, who was confined to a wheelchair after his stroke.
“Joe understood the restrictions that are imposed upon you when you can’t get around,” she said. “So we thought, this would be a wonderful thing to donate.”
Monsignor Petrillo and others are supporting the auction because they felt inspired by Joe’s story, she added.
“The pastor loved his artwork, but he was also very inspired by Joe’s deep faith and love of life. He was really moved by Joe’s character,” she recalled. “Joe was a teacher, he sang, he wrote music, played the guitar, did all these things, and then suddenly, part of him was gone and it enhanced what he was doing before. The fact that he persisted in teaching himself to paint again with his left hand…shows that a praise of God comes through in a lot of his work. I always said to him, ‘God blessed you with gifts, and they’re not for you.’”
Editor’s note: The executive director of the Pelham Examiner is one of the organizers of this event.
