Meet Artist Joe Annino
Joe Annino, an Italian American, grew up in a Sicilian neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. Louis Annino, Joe’s father, painted backdrops for movie sets in the early 1900s. Many of the ornate carved stonework and bronze relief doors decorating the buildings and churches of Melili, Sicily, were produced by the Annino family. Artistry clearly runs in the DNA of the family, and naturally, Joe Annino inherited this gift.
Joe and served his country in the U.S. Air Force between 1952-1956 and was stationed at Carswell Base in Ft. Worth, Texas, where he met Helen Vernia, Barry Annino’s mother. After serving in the Air Force, Joe earned a B.F.A degree at Texas Christian University in Art Education and minored in Spanish. Some might say this is where his love of art began to flourish.
In 1967, he studied Studio Arts, including drawing, painting, sculpture, and printmaking, at the University of Miami and decided to focus on teaching once he was done. Over the years, Joe taught art at the University of Santa Clara, U.C. Santa Cruz, and several other colleges and universities. He has had several one-man shows and participated in numerous group shows, including at the San Francisco Museum of Art, San Diego Museum of Art, and San Jose Museum of Art. His work is also featured in several renowned university and private collections, including the 1966 Early Morning painting at the San Jose Museum of Art and a group of his mixed-media Coast Impressions at Drury College Library.
Joe’s passions extend beyond art. He loves traveling and experiencing culture through food and music. Over the years, he has had the pleasure of traveling Europe, Africa, India, Russia, China, South America, and the Pacific–all of which have influenced his love of the arts.
As his current friends and neighbors describe him, Joe has a great sense of humor, but he’s also a philosophical person – compassionately awake, introspective, and ingenious.
