Robert De Niro, Sr. (1922-1993) was a postwar artist whose paintings combined modernist abstract and expressionist methods with traditional compositions and subject matter. Part of the New York School of the forties and fifties, De Niro, painted representational subject matter—landscapes, still lifes, and figures—but used these themes primarily as formal constructs for exploring the possibilities inherent in paint, color, and form.

De Niro's utilization of action painting and gestural expression places his work within the abstract expressionist discourse but it nonetheless remains firmly grounded in European, specifically French, antecedents.

Born in Syracuse, New York, De Niro showed artistic promise ...