{"data":{"id":"542","type":"artist","attributes":{"id":542,"topgoose_id":2129,"tms_id":542,"display_name":"Louis Guglielmi","sort_name":"Guglielmi Louis","display_date":"1906–1956","begin_date":"1906","end_date":"1956","biography":"\u003cp\u003eLouis Guglielmi described\u003cem\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003e\u003ca href=\"/collection/works/1776\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eTerror in\nBrooklyn\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e, one of his best-known canvases, as “a premonition of war and tragedy.” The painting reflects the artist’s highly personal response to World War II and its impact on the American psyche. Guglielmi, who was born in Egypt to Italian parents and immigrated to the United States as a child, was one of a group of American painters who became known as the Social Surrealists. Along with artists such as \u003ca href=\"/artists/138\"\u003ePeter Blume\u003c/a\u003e and \u003ca href=\"/artists/1066\"\u003eWalter Quirt\u003c/a\u003e, Guglielmi utilized the imagery and techniques of European Surrealism to address social and political themes during the 1930s and 1940s.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn \u003cem\u003eTerror in Brooklyn\u003c/em\u003e Guglielmi envisions a foreboding scene. On a bleak urban street, three nuns are entrapped by a life-sized bell jar; they seem to cower in the presence of a bandaged pelvis that hangs, like a crucifix or relic, from a nearby building. Although painted in a meticulous realist style, the scene’s incongruous details—from the decapitated lamppost to the mirror reflection of the foreground scene in the background—evoke a disjunctive sense of reality. Wispy clouds streak across the sky, like the wake of aircraft, recalling the aerial blitz of London in 1940–41. The source for Guglielmi’s image was the intersection of Atlantic and East New York Avenues in Brooklyn, where buildings were being razed as part of an urban renewal project. The ruined buildings may have resembled photographs of the war’s devastation elsewhere, inspiring this enigmatic meditation on the looming threat of violence on American soil.\u003c/p\u003e","on_view":false,"artport":false,"biennial":true,"collection":true,"ulan_id":"500009048","wikidata_id":"Q2036288","created_at":"2017-08-30T17:01:43.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-04-12T07:04:35.008-04:00","links":{"artworks":"/api/artists/542/artworks","exhibitions":"/api/artists/542/exhibitions"}}}}