Upstate Diary: Costantino Nivola: the Almost Forgotten Icon

One of first artists to settle on the East End of Long Island, the Italian painter and sculptor Costantino Nivola was a key figure in the development of the Hamptons’ vibrant art scene during the heyday of Abstract Expressionism — yet his name is hardly recognizable today.

Purchasing a farmhouse, in 1948, on thirty-five acres of overgrown property in the Springs — just down the road from friends Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner, who had moved there in 1945 — Nivola and his German-Jewish wife, Ruth Guggenheim, who was known for her jewelry and textiles, designed a dynamic garden realm where artists, architects and other creative spirits regularly congregated.