Artist Joseph Fioretti Ukrainian Institute of America
By Bennett Marcus
Artist Joseph Fioretti will showcase a selection of his works at the Ukrainian Institute of America in New York beginning on March 14th, with proceeds going to Ukrainian charities. The opening night reception should be a star-studded affair, with Michael Douglas, Gloria Steinem, Sean Penn and Gwyneth Paltrow among those on the invitation.
Coming from Wilmington, Delaware, Fioretti, 84, is married to Oscar-winning actress Lee Grant, and has had a prolific, colorful career, from plumber to ballet dancer to movie producer to visual artist. His most recent incarnation as a painter got a boost in 2019 with a successful show at the National Arts Club. “Over the last three years I’ve finished about 35 pieces that will hang in the Ukrainian Institute,” Fioretti said.
Activist Lee Grant’s idea
While considering a follow-up exhibition, Russia invaded Ukraine, and his wife and a few friends suggested mounting a show to help raise funds for humanitarian efforts for Ukraine. Lee Grant is of Ukrainian ancestry, and the Shampoo star has been an activist all her life. She was blacklisted during Hollywood’s “Red Scare” HUAC era, shut out of the industry for 12 years just after her Academy Award-nominated 1951 film debut in Detective Story, for refusing to divulge names.
Pre-show fundraising for Ukraine
Fioretti loved the idea. After years as a movie and TV producer prior to becoming a full-time artist, he is luckily in a position to be able to donate the proceeds. In fact, he began fundraising immediately, and by late December, when we spoke for this article, he had already raised $90,000. He hopes that amount will continue to grow, and to find a matching donor by March when the show opens. This effort was practical, Fioretti explained. “The Ukrainian Institute doesn’t get a lot of foot traffic, so I’m very pleased with the fact that I raised this money.”
Ukrainian theme – sunflowers, Zelenskyy
Works in the exhibit are in various mediums, including pencil, watercolor, gouache, pastel and oil, and eight pieces will feature sunflowers, Ukraine’s national flower. “The key painting, I think, is a large bouquet of sunflowers that I did in gold leaf, and it sits on a black backdrop, and it’s just stunning,” Fioretti said. He also expects to include a portrait of President Volodymyr Zelensky.
There are ways to donate without purchasing artwork. Fioretti has published 250 books on the show priced at $95, and posters depicting one of the works are $50.
Getting famous friends on board
Fioretti is turning to prominent friends like Michael Douglas, Marlo Thomas, Gloria Steinem and Judy Collins, to help spread the word about the fundraiser. He also called on Sean Penn, who made a recent documentary on Volodymyr Zelensky and Ukraine, to put him in touch with the Ukraine Ambassador in Washington, who is supporting the upcoming event. “We’ve known the Penn family for years because we were neighbors in Malibu,” he said.
He has been gratified to find that because the benefit is for Ukraine, people have been very generous. The photographer they hired to photograph the work, the publisher of the exhibition’s book and the book’s designer all offered discounts without being asked. “The less I have to spend, the more money that goes to charity,” Fioretti said.
A colorful life
Fioretti’s many careers throughout his life prove that he has never stopped growing. After high school, he joined his father as an apprentice plumber, which was not for him. So, he studied ballet, moved to New York in 1961 and began dancing professionally on stage and television. By 1963 he met Lee Grant, who grew up in Manhattan, and his dancing career came to an end.
“I walked into my wife’s house; I went into culture shock, because I had never been in the house that had Chinese Deco rugs, and paintings on the walls, and things like that,” he said. “My jaw fell open, and I realized that dancing was never going to be able to support this, and if I wanted to hold onto her, I better figure out a way to make money.”
They moved to California, Fioretti began working on low-budget movies, learning how to produce, and later he had a company producing commercials for big advertising agencies. “And then one day, I decided this isn’t for me. I don’t want to do this anymore. I’m the type of person, overnight, I’ll say, ‘I can’t do this anymore,’ and I’ll just stop it.’”
Eventually they moved back to New York, and he took classes at the Art Students League.
In the meantime, he and his wife started a company making documentaries for HBO and television movies for the networks, and did that for 25 years, winning awards along the way. Their 1986 documentary Down and Out in America, about homelessness in the U.S. during the Reagan presidency, received the Best Documentary Feature Oscar. Baghdad ER, on U.S. military surgeons in the Iraq war, won four Emmys and the prestigious Peabody award.
ukrainianinstitute.org
