Where art and artist meet: Pasquale Santo in the Vermont Historical Society Collection

By Katie Grant

In the summer of 2024, I began work on several new acquisitions to our collection that demonstrate the intersection between Vermont’s inspiring landscapes and our determination to create usable, beautiful things: the paintings and personal items of artist Pasquale Santo.

Born in Italy in 1893, Santo emigrated to the United States in 1913. After working as a laborer throughout the Northeast for several years, he settled in Bennington where he began to hone his skills as a painter, painting houses, signs, murals, and oil paintings. By the late 1930s, his work attracted the attention of art connoisseurs and dealers in New York, which brought him to international attention, showcasing not only his skill and creativity, but also allowing the world to see, appreciate, and share the beauty of Vermont.

Thanks to the Santo family, the Vermont Historical Society recently accessioned one of the artist’s paintings, "Henry Bridge" (1946), along with the easel he used. While I was unable to take the painting and easel down to Bennington and stand in the spot Santo painted, I was excited to bring these two items together for the first time in nearly eighty years to see what else we could uncover about Santo’s vision and process.

Pasquale Santo's easel, in the collection of the Vermont Historical Society

Standing in front of Santo’s easel, one can begin to understand the complexities of painting in the outdoors and how the choice of location to depict a scene has just as much to do with the view of the landmark as it does with the practicalities of painting on-location. Santo chose to stand downriver of the bridge, which allowed him to make several smart decisions about his position: he could explore the movement of the water as it flowed past, the interplay of light and shade in his surroundings, while also using the same shade to give him some relief from the sun.

Santo’s easel itself is quite large, featuring a detachable palette stand that gave him an additional work surface if he found himself somewhere more precarious. It would have provided him with a sturdy foundation on which to lay his canvas without having to worry about a sudden breeze jarring his work or a rolling pebble adjusting the angle without his approval, but he would have had to carefully consider his movements with easel, paints, canvas, and brushes before venturing out.

A closer look at Santo’s easel reveals just how much he relied upon this tool. The corners and edges of each leg have been worn down over time, while faint dirt stains and chips to the paint reveal its use in the field. Some components, like the palette shelf, have been adjusted off-center over time. As the wooden shelf and metal gromets have aged, Santo made modifications and minor updates so that his canvas could remain level despite rough Vermont terrain or natural shifting of built wood objects used outdoors in all weather.

Santo is known for his incredible attention to detail, and painting artworks like "Henry Bridge" on his easel on-location enabled him to focus entirely on the scene at hand. Viewers can see each river rock in the two large bridge supports, while the latticed sides of the bridge call to those angular sections, linking top and bottom of the bridge in a way that blends this human-made conveyance into a natural landscape that has been there for centuries. The pale sky, with just a few wisps and puffs of clouds, contrasts dramatically with the river below the bridge as it rushes over the waterfall and calms to a more sedate pace in the foreground. Other evidence of Bennington’s human interaction, from fences guiding travelers up to cross the bridge to a house just peeking through the trees, contrast the built and natural worlds while simultaneously revealing a love and respect for this river.

The painting of Henry Bridge is a stunning and comforting depiction of a classic Vermont landmark; along with the easel he used to create, it becomes a window into Santo’s methods and perspective on the state he came to call home. We have thousands of objects in our collection that speak to the power Vermont holds
within our hearts, but this pair might be the one I find most compelling. The combined impact of Santo’s easel and this idyllic painting remind us that the point of his art is not his role as artist but rather the passion and welcome that Vermont’s spaces offer to all Vermonters at-heart.

You can see both the easel and "Henry Bridge" in our museum catalog. 

This article originally appeared in the Summer/Fall 2024 issue of our member magazine, History Connections. To get it and support the Vermont Historical Society, sign up as a member.