Frank Rampolla was born of Italian parentage in New York CIty in the early days of the Great Depression,
and grew up in a world at war. He received his early academic training in his native city where he attended
the Art Students League (1949-50) and Cooper Union (1950-54), and where he had his first one-artist show at
Fleischman Gallery in 1956.
In the next year he was married, had works included in a group exhibition, "Art
U.S.A.", at Madison Square Garden, and entered Boston University. In 1959 he was awarded the Grand Prize of
The Friends of Art of Boston University, and graduated magna cum laude with a B.F.A. degree in 1960.
Moving to Sarasota, Rampolla taught painting, drawing, color and design at the Ringling Museum of Art, from 1960-68,
after which he was appointed to the art faculty at the University of South Florida. He died in Tampa at the
age of forty.
*NEW* Video
Featuring Ron Rampolla, son of the late Frank Rampolla.
*NEW* Video: Roundtable Discussion
Featuring Ron Rampolla, son of the late Frank Rampolla; Fiore Custode; Eric Lang Peterson; Lynn Whitelaw; Tom Kettner; Robert Sindlier; Bruce Marsh.
Film on Frank Rampolla
This film was created by Nicolas Paul, a graduate student at the
University of South Florida, after Rampolla's death in 1971. (Video is 5 minutes and requires Quicktime)
