Painting a Bridge to the Past
(05/26/2009) “The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time in its wild promise of all the mystery
 Liz Jorg Masi
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and the beauty of the world,” wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald in “The Great Gatsby” in 1925. The bridge was still young then, just 16 years, having been completed in March 1909.
Antonio Masi was 7 years old when he first laid eyes on New York City from the vantage point of the processing center at Ellis Island in 1947. He remembers “straining to see New York Harbor through the windows. In the distance, thousands of glowing lights dotted the skyline.”
As he stared, mesmerized, at Manhattan’s skyline, his mind was filled with the stories he grew up hearing, tales about his grandfather, Francisco, an Italian immigrant who had hauled steel as part of the work force that built the Queensboro. Fifty men lost their lives building the bridge. Even then, Mr. Masi recalled being “deeply drawn by the beauty of the city’s iconic bridges,” he said. “I intuitively grasped the promise, excitement, and staggering immensity.”
The artist, who divides his time between Montauk and Garden City, knew he “wanted, somehow, to replicate on canvas those first sensations” and to honor “the work and words” of his grandfather.
The New York City Bridge Centennial Commission will be honoring the 100th birthdays of six New York City bridges through 2010. The Queensboro will be the first major bridge to be celebrated, with an event on Sunday that will include jazz, walking tours, a parade, and fireworks.
Also on Sunday, the Fardom Gallery in Long Island City will present a solo exhibit of Mr. Masi’s paintings, “Queensboro Bridgescape,” which will be on view through the end of June. On Wednesday at 6:30 p.m., Mr. Masi will give a talk, “Queensboro: A Vision Realized,” at a reception for the exhibit.
Mr. Masi, who studied at the School of Visual Arts and the City University of New York and worked as a graphic artist for 40 years, has painted nine New York bridges so far, the Queensboro, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg, R.F.K. (formerly the Triboro), Bronx-Whitestone, Throgs Neck, George Washington, and the Verrazano. He is also co-writing a book about the bridges of New York City with Joan Marans-Dim, who wrote “The Miracle on Washington Square,” about the history of New York University.
The large-scale paintings, ranging in size from 30 inches by 22 inches to 60 inches by 40 inches, are made using glazes to create richly detailed images. For more than a decade, these paintings have been Mr. Masi’s
An evening view of the Queensboro Bridge by Antonio Masi.
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focus, and he chose watercolor because it “is a powerful medium capable of expressing bold subjects,” he said. He was influenced to work “large in watercolor” by Paul Ching-Bor, who is known for stretching the traditional format of the medium in complex, stark, large-scale works.
“My paintings are a result of the play of values and brushstrokes. To develop the mood,” Mr. Masi said, “I apply multiple glazes and juicy washes. Then, I begin to refine areas with descriptive details.”
His goal is to “capture mood and those stirring, overpowering sensations reminiscent of my first glimpse of New York Harbor.”
For more than 50 years, he has been walking and riding across the Queensboro Bridge. With its span of 3,274 feet, the stone and steel structure, which connects Queens to Manhattan over Roosevelt Island, is anchored by masonry towers with dome-shaped tops and has adornments such as the Art Nouveau-style crowning finials.
As a boy, Mr. Masi would take the trolley across the bridge to his sister Gina’s house in Astoria. The ride cost 5 cents, and then the trolley runs ended in 1957.
Mr. Masi and his wife, Elizabeth Jorg Masi, a portrait painter, bought a parcel of land in Montauk in 1968 and built a house there the following year. “Montauk is our first real home,” he said. “I love its openness, unobstructed views, that same feeling that I get when I walk on the bridges and gaze out over the horizon, a sense of freedom.”
(A contingent of Irish-Americans objected to calling the bridge Queensboro because it sounded too British, so Bernard McLaughlin, a promoter of the bridge, suggested in 1909 that a more American-sounding name be chosen, such as Montauk. The idea didn’t fly.)
The couple have studios in Montauk and Garden City and have three children, “all artistic.” Victoria Masi Pryor is a fashion designer, Alexandria Keleher is a graphic artist, and Paul Masi is a partner in Bates-Masi Architects in Sag Harbor.
Among the many honors Mr. Masi has earned for his work, he received an award of excellence from the Suburban Art League and Visual Arts Center and best in show from the Art League of Nassau County, as well as several awards from the American Watercolor Society.
His work has been shown at the Phyllis Lucas Gallery and the Salmagundi Club, both in Manhattan, the Art League of Long Island, the Bosque Conservatory of Art in Texas, the North East Watercolor Society in Connecticut, and the American Watercolor Society, among others.
“Bridges to me are a connection,” Mr. Masi said, “not just joining two landmasses, but an emotional state, one that acts as an invisible thread binding the past and the future,” or, in this case, binding a grandfather, who built a bridge 100 years ago, to a grandson, who painted it.