by Karen Chernick | November 11, 2019
Robert De Niro, Sr. and Jr., 1983
In the 1960s, a different Robert De Niro was making a name for himself in the New York art scene.
The best place to spot a real-life Robert De Niro is at the Tribeca Grill, a veteran restaurant in downtown New York City known for its industrial charm and abundance of celebrities out to lunch. No, not De Niro the actor, though he is one of the establishment's co-owners. The De Niro in question is modernist painter Robert De Niro, Sr.—father of the Academy award-winner—whose colorful artworks have adorned the eatery's walls since it first opened in 1990.
"Every piece of art in the restaurant is De Niro Sr.'s," Martin Shapiro, managing partner of the Tribeca Grill, told Art & Object of the brasserie's roughly forty De Niro, Sr. paintings. "There's no other artist that's shown. And that's really what our décor is, it's almost like a gallery. It's a permanent collection."
Robert De Niro, Sr., The Last Painting, 1985-1993
In fact, the restaurant is one of the only places to view this lesser-known painter's work on a permanent basis. Of the museums that have his work in their collections (including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, and Smithsonian American Art Museum), few exhibit them regularly. De Niro is a big name onscreen, far less so in the art world.
But the artist is currently having a bit of a limelight moment, thanks to the recent publication of his first comprehensive monograph, Robert De Niro, Sr.: Paintings, Drawings, and Writings 1942-1993 (Rizzoli, October 2019). A solo exhibition devoted to the artist will also soon open at DC Moore, the New York gallery representing De Niro, Sr.
De Niro (the actor) has had much to do with keeping his father's work in the public eye. "It has been important to me to preserve my father's artistic legacy," he writes in the monograph introduction, "to tell the story of his life and his art, and to make sure that they are known and understood."
…
"I remember as a kid being in his studio and listening to him talk about dealers and artists, and the great works of art and literature he loved," De Niro describes in his monograph introduction, "and I understood, even at that young age, that my father was passionate about what he did."
Ultimately, his was the classic tale of a tortured, unappreciated creative. Thomas Hess, longtime editor of ARTnews and one of De Niro, Sr.'s champions, wrote in 1976 that "after some 30 years of uninterrupted hard work, usually in impossible conditions (crowded small studios, bursting pipes, unpaid bills–day in, day out, De Niro's routine has assumed the shape of a classic bohemian hard-luck story), he remains almost unknown."
The artist's Last Painting (1985-93), displayed at the Tribeca Grill, is speckled with jewel-toned color and Matissean patterns. It shows a table draped with a decorative lavender tablecloth, set with two classically-shaped white vases, lemons, and a dish of pickles. Behind the table is a tall, verdant house plant; a banjo or lute rests on the floor. The scene is uninhabited–it is an image of De Niro, Sr.'s studio as a vacant still life, an exploration of colors, shapes, and objects.
…
"He also did both of our menu covers," Shapiro notes. "Our menu for lunch and dinner, and our menu for dessert. One is a drawing of the building that we're in, and the other is a drawing of the bar. I remember him sitting at the bar, drawing the bar, back when we first opened up." De Niro, Sr. died on May 3, 1993; it was his 71st birthday.
It is largely thanks to his son that his works are preserved, exhibited, and available on the art market today. De Niro has shared his fame with his namesake, hanging his father's paintings in many of his Manhattan business ventures. "We get a lot of customers that'll come in and ask about his art, and walk around the space," adds Shapiro. "We get people every day that come in, and even if they don't come specifically for the art, they're just wowed by it."