— “JEFFREY PITTU was born on this day, April 5, in 1958, in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
Jeff was a naturally, wildly gifted visual artist. Also a brilliant thinker and wit. He was one of a kind. Anyone who knew him was influenced by his genius, his beauty, his demons.
An honors student, accepted on full scholarship to
@Yale , Jeff left Yale to attend
@ParsonsSchoolofDesign , and soon after that began making a name for himself in New York, developing a kind of decorative reverse stencil process with which he would cover myriad surfaces including whole floors, folding screens, trays, chairs. He received commissions and was written about in magazines like
@NYmag and
@GQ . A piece about him in
@NYmag from 1980 is shown here (photo 3 & 4). He was 22!
Jeff would pass away 10 years later, at Saint Vincent’s hospital, on March 11, 1990. But it’s his birthday, April 5, I prefer to honor.
Jeff was the oldest of the three kids in our family. Our sister Carrie was born two years after Jeff, then I was born, the youngest, on April 4, 1967. So my own birthday is always bittersweet because it’s the day before his and it’s impossible not to feel like something’s off.
Growing up, our birthdays were always celebrated together, like we were twins. And when we were both adults and it was harder to tell the difference in our ages, people often asked us if we were twins and when that happened my heart would swell with pride because I loved him so much and it made me feel even more like we were this special superbrother team.
I like to remember Jeff the way he looks in the
@NYmag photo: the ultimate genius art boy in his artist-vintage chic, full of life and youth and arrival, standing next to something he made, beaming, almost blushing, like it was his birthday.“ — 📖 by David Pittu
@dpittu 📸
@stanley.stellar2 #whatisrememberedlives
