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This article needs additional citations for verification. (September 2010) |
| Virginia Admiral | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Virginia Holton Admiral[1] |
| Born | February 4, 1915 Oregon, U.S. |
| Died | July 20, 2000 (aged 85) New York City, U.S. |
| Movement | Painter |
Virginia Holton Admiral or Virginia De Niro (February 4, 1915 – July 20, 2000) was an American painter and poet. Her former husband was painter Robert De Niro, Sr., and they are the parents of actor Robert De Niro.[2]
Life and work [edit]
Admiral was born in Oregon, the daughter of Alice Caroline (née Groman), a school teacher, and Donald Admiral, a grain broker. Admiral was a Presbyterian of English, German, French, and Dutch descent. In 1920, she was residing in Danville, Illinois according to the census, with her parents and younger sister, Eleanor. By 1930, Virginia's parents had divorced and she was living with her mother and sister in Berkeley, California. While in Berkeley, her mother became a school teacher.
She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1938, she worked on the Federal Art Project, in Oakland, California.[3] While living in Berkeley, California, she had been part of an off-campus art and socialist and literary scene. Having traveled together from California to Greenwich Village, New York, Admiral was an intimate friend of poet Robert Duncan throughout the 1940s as well as other artists and writers in the Village scene. Among them was Anais Nin and Kenneth Patchen. Admiral, a painter, met Robert De Niro, Sr., an aspiring artist, at one of Hans Hofmann's painting classes in Provincetown, Massachusetts. They moved into an loft apartment on E. 14th Street, then 8th Street, then settled into one on Bleeker Street in Greenwich Village. They married in December 1941. In August 1943, Virginia gave birth to their son, award-winning actor and director, Robert De Niro, Jr.
For a time she worked as a typist for Anaïs Nin.[4] Both she and husband Robert wrote erotica briefly for Nin. She and Robert De Niro divorced in 1945, but remained close throughout their lives. When Robert Sr. came down with cancer, she took him in during his last years.[5] Later, in New York, she wrote for True Crimes magazine. She was active in political movements against the Vietnam War and for the rights of artists and the poor. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice.
References [edit]
- ^ [1]
- ^ Robert De Niro - Biography, TalkTalk.co.uk
- ^ "Virginia Admiral, 85, Painter and Writer". The New York Times. August 15, 2000.
- ^ Turner, Christopher (March 19, 2009). "The bohemian life of Robert De Niro, senior". The Daily Telegraph (London).
- ^ http://www.theartstory.org/artist-de-niro-robert.htm
6. Robert Duncan: The Ambassador from Venus, A Biography by Lisa Jarnot; University of California Press, 2012
7. Untouchable: A Biography of Robert De Niro by Andy Dougan; Da Capo Press, 2003
External links [edit]
- Virginia Admiral papers, (ca.1947-1980) from the Smithsonian Archives of American Art
- http://www.askart.com/askart/a/virginia_admiral/virginia_admiral.aspx
- NYTimes Art
- Untouchable: A Biography of Robert De Niro
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