Robert De Niro and his Father.
While many people are familiar with acting legend Robert De Niro, star of such films as, “Meet the Parents,” “Taxi Driver,” and “The Godfather Part II.” Winner of multiple academy awards, he has definitely seen his fair share of limelight. But what if we told you he had a father who was also famous for work in the arts?
The picture above shows the young Robert De Niro Jr. with his father, Robert De Niro Sr. Robert De Niro Sr. was born in 1922 the son of Italian and Irish immigrants to America. Throughout his young life, he discovered a fondness for the art of painting. He saw it as a way to express your own thoughts in a way that words could never. He dedicated his life to improving his artistic skills and learned under the famous painter Hans Hoffman. De Niro Sr. quickly grew to center a style in cubism, painting only using simple shapes, and expressionism, which is to paint unspecific images to evoke emotion.
While studying, he fell in love with a fellow student named Virginia Admiral and the two were married. A son was born to the couple who would grow up to be the academy award-winning Robert De Niro Jr. we know today. Shortly after the boy was born, however, Robert Sr. and Virginia divorced. The father and son rarely got to see each other and this photo is one of the few in which they are together. De Niro then began to withdraw into his work, painting more than he ever did before. He would go on to have work featured in New York’s Charles Egan Gallery and the Hirshhorn Museum of Washington D.C. The artist would die at 71 years of age due to cancer.