SUMMIT, NJ — Bill Gallo is a partially retired professor and healthcare entrepreneur.
And being partially retired, the Maplewood resident found himself spending a lot of time at Florez Tobacconist in Summit. In the past year, he’s been painting a series of portraits of the members and regulars there.
“It’s a place to share stories and life experience,” said Gallo. “It’s a really wonderful group of guys. Many of the guys are my age. You become instant friends despite differences in background. There is a single woman in the group. I do have plans to paint her as part of the series.”
Gallo thought his series would be a nice way to memorialize the group. He said, “I do realize that cigar smoking may seem a vice to some, but I am certain that others would find the marriage of art and cigar smoking rather interesting.”
He paints portraits in “Dutch Old Masters” – the way Rembrandt painted. “Seven-layer technique that starts with a black-and-white painting and builds up layers of color over seven layers,” said Gallo.
Gallo says he’s been an artist his whole life. He’s partially self-taught and has studied at the Montclair Art Museum. He also took classes at the Art Garage in Montclair, which is now permanently closed. “I was doing landscape work and became interested in faces,” he said.
While Gallo’s professional life and art life are totally separate, art is a calling he could never stop. He said, “Painting is transcendent. There’s no way to not heed the call.”
In addition to Gallo’s cigar series, he also did a barista series. And when he was a professor, he painted every one of his doctoral students. He also painted professional female fighters.
Gallo is inspired by people in general. He said, “Even though I’m painting outward, it’s what’s within them that inspires me. I’m looking for something within a person and trying to bring that out.”
For anyone who would like to become a good painter, Gallo advises practice. “It’s like anything else,” he said. “It’s not a matter of talent. It’s a matter of practice. I paint four or five hours a day, finding a way to express it artistically. Don’t hold back is what I’d tell anyone. Get it on the canvas or keyboard.”
Gallo is married, with a daughter still at home. “She’s a student at Fairleigh Dickenson,” he said. He also works part-time as executive director at The Science Translation Foundation, a nonprofit that does science literacy training. He also likes to cook and has eight cats.
