Robert De Niro, Sr.

Robert Mario De Niro, Sr. (January 17, 1922 – May 3, 1993) was an abstract expressionist painter. He is perhaps best known as the father of actor Robert De Niro.

Biography
Robert De Niro, Sr., was born in Syracuse, New York, to an Italian American father, Henry Martin De Niro, who was originally of Neapolitan descent, and an Irish mother, Helen O'Reilly. De Niro studied with Hans Hofmann at his Provincetown, Massachusetts summer school where he met fellow student Virginia Admiral, whom he married in 1942. The couple moved into a large, airy loft in New York's Greenwich Village, where they were able to paint. The couple surrounded themselves with an illustrious circle of friends, including writers Anaïs Nin and Henry Miller, playwright Tennessee Williams, and actress and famous Berlin dancer Valeska Gert. Admiral and De Niro separated shortly after their son, Robert De Niro, Jr., was born in August 1943.

De Niro attended Black Mountain College in the 1950s. Being a self proclaimed perfectionist, De Niro painted and repainted his canvases again and again. He would do hundreds of studies before he decided to paint the subject. De Niro was prone to bouts of depression and this encumbered him throughout his life.

De Niro was a visiting artist at Michigan State University's Department of Art in the early 1960s.

He was also bisexual and had Robert Duncan as a lover.

In 2007, son Robert De Niro threatened legal action against the Benucci S.r.l. art gallery, in Rome, Italy, after it allegedly took a number of his father's paintings from a New York arthouse to settle a $5 million debt.

Death
Robert De Niro, Sr., died at age 71, on the morning of Monday, May 3, 1993, in New York City. He is interred at Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York. Just three months before he died his god children were born, Lauren and Nicholas Martino. Their parents are Anthony Martino and Judith Cuttler, both residents of the Westbeth Artists Community in Greenwich Village. The film A Bronx Tale was dedicated to him after his death; it was the directorial debut of his son, Robert De Niro, Jr.