Antonio P. Martino, the son of Italian immigrants, grew up in Philadelphia, where he trained at the Graphic Sketch Club (now Fleisher Art Memorial), the La France Art Institute, and the Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Art (now the University of the Arts). Martino later worked as an apprentice at the lithography firm Associated Artists.
He gained early success, exhibiting his work at the age of seventeen and later receiving a bronze medal at the Sesquicentennial International Exposition in Philadelphia for his impressionistic landscapes. In 1971, he moved to California, where his work took on brighter colors as he turned increasingly to marinas and waterfront scenes, extending his interest into coastal environments. In Pemaquid Light, he depicts the Pemaquid Point Lighthouse in Bristol, Maine, again emphasizing the convergence of sky, water, and structure.
Martino’s work has been exhibited in many institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, both in New York; the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois; and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond.
