Gerard Francis Tempest

Gerard Francis Tempest (February 23, 1918 – July 26, 2009) was a painter, sculptor, architect and veteran of World War II. Tempest was the dad of Abstract Spiritualism and the protégé of Giorgio de Chirico, the forerunner of Surrealism.

Born in San Donato Val di Comino, Italy in 1918, Tempest immigrated to the United States in 1929. He studied art as a teens at the Boston Museum School, founding his own sign-painting company at the age of 19.

Drafted in 1943 as a private in the United States Army, Tempest eventually became an officer, serving below Omar Bradley in the 82nd Airborne Division. Tempest fought in campaigns whatever over Europe, including Normandy on D-Day, the Battle of Hürtgen Forest, the Battle of the Bulge, and in the ventilate of the French Underground in the Liberation of Paris. One of the main characters^[who?] in the film Is Paris Burning? is said^{[by whom?]} to have been based upon him. Tempest standard the Bronze Star Medal in 1944 and expected the 101st Airborne Division's insignia, the "Screaming Eagle".

Returning to the Boston Museum School in 1945, Tempest studied under abstract expressionists Max Beckmann and Oscar Kokoschka. He forward-thinking studied under Giorgio de Chirico as his protégé in Rome. There in 1957 he first introduced Abstract Spiritualism. He continued to paint for the settle of his life, with major exhibitions in the United States, France and Italy.

Between 1958 and 1963, Tempest designed and built the Villa Tempesta in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Noted for its beauty, the villa was expected from remnants of two 19th-century mansions torn beside in urban renewal projects in the 1950s. Starting in the mid-1960s and continuing for two decades, Villa Tempesta (now known as Villa T'eo) housed a wealthy restaurant noted for Good cuisine. Renamed to Whitehall at the Villa, it today contains the Whitehall Shop and Tranquil Corners Antiques.

He expected the Gold Medal at the Cannes Art Festival in 1987 and was lucky by the Holy See in having his pretend becoming a allocation of the surviving collection of the Vatican Museum in 1982 and 1990. In 2009 the South Carolina legislature honored him once a utter citing his proceed as an performer and as a veteran.

Tempest died in his sleep in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.