An Italian shoemaker by trade, Sandro Natullo was discovered while painting beautiful impressionist scenes on the backs of cigarette boxes on a sidewalk outside of Naples. His paintings posses the bold use of natural light and exquisite implementation of colors. Add to this Natullo’s own distinctive delicacy and feeling for the people and places around him and the result is pure enchantment in oils.
An American art dealer based in Rome, Barney Korchin was an avid collector of European art and would only buy directly from the artists themselves. Immediately impressed by Natullo’s talent, he purchased his first 20 Natullo’s in 1961 which were all delightful scenes of Italy painted on wood, cardboard and canvas. Korchin became Natullo’s patron and bought the artist’s entire output as it became available in the 1970s.
Korchin began successfully selling Natullo in his Rome, New York and Philadelphia galleries. In 1974, Natullo was honored at the Galleried du Antibes with his first independent showing.
Over the years, Natullo’s work came to the attention of some of America’s outstanding collectors, and as a result his paintings now hang in the homes of Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young, Irwin Show and Robert Merrill to name a few.
Both the artist and his patron died in 1979 and the collection was sent to the United States for safekeeping at the Galleries of AKC in Philadelphia. It was kept there through the 1980s as the remainder of the Korchin Collection was catalogued and sold.
In early 1990, Korchin’s daughter Denise Chernoff relocated to Winter Park and brought with her the collection of Natullo paintings.
