Vincent Malta

Born 1922

Malta was a New York artist who had a studio and gallery in Brooklyn. For many years he was a professor at the Art Students League in New York City.

He is listed in "Who Was Who In American Art." c. 1950's - 1970's.

n 1978 Marlene Schiller wrote an article published in American Artist magazine titled “Vincent Malta: Return to the Art Spirit.” The article features artist Vincent Malta, his painting style and his artworks. He is an art teacher at The Art Students League. It discusses the opinion of Stewart Klonis, executive director at the art school, and painter Everett Raymond Kinstler about the artworks of Malta. The influence of such artists as Bessie Potter Vonnor and Wayman Adams in the life of Malta as a painter is also cited.

Here was an article in the New York Times in October of 2005 about the artist when he was 83 years old.

LONG before Brooklyn got out of bed on Friday morning, Vincent Malta, 83, was up and painting in the quiet of the colorful clutter that has been his gallery, and his home, for more than half a century.

Mr. Malta is a rather unusual portrait of the struggling artist: nearly two decades after his first Social Security check arrived, he began making a living selling his paintings. It started off slowly. A couple of years ago, a friend of a friend stopped by his Bensonhurst home that serves as a studio and gallery and bought six paintings. He passed them along to family and friends.

Since then, Mr. Malta has sold more than two dozen paintings, many of them portraits, at prices ranging from $1,500 to $5,000. After a lifetime of trying to get his career off the canvas, he has finally cultivated a small but avid following across the region. "I do believe that fate, and a lot of luck, is finally taking over," he said.

His late rise in the land of the lofts is a bit of a second wind for Mr. Malta, whose works are influenced by Picasso and the 17th-century painters Vermeer and Rubens.

He taught at the Art Students League in Manhattan for 35 years, did freelance commercial work and had works shown at various galleries. "But it never amounted to much," he says.

With no pets, a clock that does not tick and only the memory of a television set, he has eliminated distractions, enabling him to keep a focused routine of working from noon until the early hours of the morning, surrounded by 40 of his paintings. "That is why I never married," he said. "My art kept getting in the way."