I stumbled across the art of Ralph Fasanella in the 1970s and he has since been my favorite primitive artist. He was self-taught, untrained, has the eye of a genius and the soul of a saint. He was a union man and a champion of the worker who slaved daily to put food on the table. His homages to his father, an iceman, were Christ-like, and by extension, so are all common men, who he saw as tireless heroes who worked themselves to death for a pittance.

He commemorated the great, the martyrs of our time.

He was a New Yorker, born in The Bronx in 1914.

Many of his paintings are huge, filled with the smallest details. He was prolific: he had a lot to say.