About the artist:

Mr. Ralph Carpentier was born in 1929 in St. Albans, Queens, a big step up from Manhattan, he said, for his Italy-educated, immigrant father and his Italian-American mother. His father was a printer who became a proofreader for The New York Times. His grandfather, the artist explained, was adopted by a Frenchman named Carpentier who brought him up in Italy, Italianizing the name to “Carpentieri.” His mother changed it back again, in their German-Irish neighborhood in Queens, to protect her children from the stigma of being “the only guinea kids on the block.” “But I feel like an Italian-American,” Mr. Carpentier said. “I ate the food and spoke the language; it’s my heritage.” Growing up, Mr. Carpentier wanted to be an artist while his parents advocated a profession; they compromised on a major in book illustration at the School of Industrial Arts. “I became a compulsive drawer,” he said, “drawing four and five hours a day, on the subway, in the park, fooling around in coffee shops.” Courtesy of the artist's website at https://www.ralphcarpentier.net/biography