An Invitation to the World of Artist Tommaso Juglaris

In 2000 a previously unknown handwritten manuscript—a memoir—was discovered in a town just outside Turin in northern Italy. With its discovery, the memoir’s author, an almost entirely forgotten artist named Tommaso Juglaris, moved out of the shadows. Suddenly revealed was the extraordinary career of an artist and teacher who lived and worked in Italy, France, England and America during a time of great ferment and social change.

At first, the importance of the memoir was not fully recognized, but its value has since become apparent. The Juglaris manuscript offers a rare and insightful perspective on the European art scene just as it was reaching new heights. It also chronicles the development of the arts in late nineteenth-century America, which were just beginning to come into their own.

The purpose of this web site and digital catalogue is to bring long overdue attention to Tommaso Juglaris and his memoir, and to solicit support for its publication. However, this web site is also intended to be helpful in other ways:

• It offers prospective visitors to the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing, Michigan and the Franklin Public Library in Franklin, Massachusetts an opportunity to learn more about the artist whose most notable works as a muralist are preserved there.
• It provides art historians and those interested in late nineteenth-century art information regarding Juglaris’s contributions to the development of the fine arts and art education in the United States, particularly in Boston, the “Athens of America.”
• It highlights for the Italian-American community the role played by native son Tommaso Juglaris in bringing the traditions of European art to American shores and furthering the progress of American art despite strong anti-immigrant prejudice and discrimination.
• It shares with those studying the immigrant experience in America the testimony of a perceptive and articulate voyager who not only confronted the dangers of ocean crossings and the fear of the unknown, but also homesickness, loneliness, and difficulties making oneself understood in the face of unfamiliar customs and overt hostility.
• And—through the eyes of an artist—it imparts a vivid and revealing account of daily life in late-nineteenth century America and the social, cultural, economic and political forces that molded it.

As you learn more about Tommaso Juglaris as artist, teacher, and memoirist, you are invited to become a supporting member of the Tommaso Juglaris Society. Join us in ensuring that Juglaris’s remarkable memoir gains the audience it has always deserved.

Dr. Geoffrey G. Drutchas – Principal Author and Editor
Gary M. Peters – Graphics Arts Editor
Kerry K. Chartkoff – Contributing Editor
Judith Hochwald Trinchero, Contributing Editor-Translations
for the Juglaris Publication Commission