Customer Reviews

Baltimore's Own Little Italy Artist: the Artwork of Tony DeSales

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This book is like a trip down "memory lane" for those of us who grew up in Baltimore. It is apparent that a great deal of thought went into the prepartion of this book. The full page prints are nicely presented on glossy paper. This is also an inspiring story of a man's generosity to his family and his community via his artwork.

This lovingly crafted book Rita and Perrin French
traces the work of Rita's brother Tony DeSales.
The prints are warm,evocative and touch the spirit of
place, They show artist and scene as one; his trying to
make you observe the vision of Baltimore that he had embraced.
Many are hauntingly beautiful renderings and show a warm remembrance of his vision. You will see many nuances
of place and look again at places found in this wonderfully
crafted editon.

Although I am not usually an art fan, I found this book to be a delightful view into the life and work of Tony DeSales. If you love Baltimore (as I do) then this book is for you. The many drawings and photographs of local landmarks will give you a different view that only Tony DeSales can provide. This is a great book!

Rita DeSales French has a unique prospective on the works of her brother Tony, a humanitarian and ambassador to Baltimore, whose love of Baltimore shines through in this wonderful book.

Anyone who has ever visited Baltimore and met Tony DeSales would appreciate the photos, post cards, and sketches. He made his living sketching scenes of Baltimore and selling them to locals and tourists. This is depicted in the book. He had tourists and locals send him postcards from their home town. Some of these appear in the book, along with wonderful old photographs.

This one would make a wonderful table top book or gift for anyone.

"Baltimore's Own Little Italy Artist-The Artwork of Tony DeSales" is beautifully done! I very much like many of the more intricate (detailed) of Tony's drawings (Baltimore, Little Italy, Fells Point, Annapolis, Wash DC, & other locations). One really gets a feeling for the man-a good man, a community man, a people-person, a man who took care of his mother lifelong, a man who loved his surroundings, as depicted in his drawings. The authors did a beautiful job of putting this together-the artwork, the photographs, the biographical element and the descriptions of Baltimore neighborhoods & landmarks (and other).

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in street art and the Baltimore area. It is packed with Tony's beautiful artwork and the authors' detailed stories of the area. Every Baltimorean should own a copy. Rita and her co-authors have done a superb job.

Rita D. French, Perrin L. French and Irvin F. Lin Baltimore's Own Little Italy Artist: The artwork of Tony De Sales (Genovefa Press P.O. Box 50954, Palo Alto, CA 94303 www.genovefapress.com), 2003, 224 pp. $29.95

This volume spotlights the artwork of Tony De Sales. His pen and ink drawings, some colored with crayon or simple paint, documented the architectural details and settings of his origins in working class Baltimore. Tony's sister, Rita De Sales French, and brother-in-law, Perrin L. French, unite Tony's life story with his artwork.
For thirty five years Tony maintained his "outdoor" studio and sales room at the corner of Fawn and High streets in Little Italy, an intersection frequented by locals, tourists and celebrities en route to see the sights of this historic and culinary-rich area of Baltimore. Tony's grandparents, his paternal side from Palermo, his maternal side from Warsaw, arrived in Baltimore in the early part of the 20th century. At an early age Tony became the family mainstay-his parents separated and his mother, Genevieve, suffered from mental illness. He never married and helped to raise his younger siblings and later cared for his mother until her death in 1998. On good summer days Genevieve would sit with him as he worked and greeted passersby.
The people he met on his corner of Little Italy often became friends. He gave them postcards of his prints to mail back to him when they returned to their homes across the U.S. and the world.
The book is filled with reproductions of Tony's artwork and some photos of the actual scenes he drew accompanied with descriptive text. The book covers the span of his artwork: Little Italy, Baltimore Harbor at Fells Point and seaway, Annapolis and places outside Maryland that Tony visited.
This volume makes a perfect gift for collectors of Italian American art, devotees of maritime and urban landscape art. It would serve well as a souvenir for tourists to Baltimore, Annapolis and Washington D.C. and a rewarding way for residents of the Baltimore-Washington D.C. corridor to learn and appreciate the place they call home.

This book is a unique combination of biography, city-history, and insight into the feelings and production of a gifted, self-taught artist. Tony DeSales overcame limitations of means and circumstance to bear witness to the city and neighborhood he loved.

The authors of this book, in turn, do justice to the artist's life and deep-felt monochrome and color sketches. Writing, production, and reproduction of the artwork are all first-rate.

This book is a bargain at its price, and is priceless for those who share Tony DeSales' love for Baltimore.

The book I bought was priced resemably and was in great shape as well as being delivered in a timely fashion...I would have no problem in purchasing from this buyer again....the book was a great flashback to a time when Little Italy was at its best. Im sure the streets of Little Italy miss Tony and all the attention he brought to the area from visitors from all over the world. Thank you Rita for allowing us a glimpse into the life of Tony and your family.
Keith Baker