Guidone, Thomas

Thomas Guidone was born in Sorento, a Province of Naples, Italy on April 4, 1898. He moved to New Haven, Connecticut when he was three years old and was educated in the public schools. According to his daughter, Reverend Vera Niestemski, Guidone was fourteen not three years old when he came to America and was not educated in the public schools. In 1927 he secretly married Gertrude Dwyer while attending Yale University. He graduated from the Yale School of Fine Arts in 1928. His thesis was on the ancient art of egg tempera formulations that artists had handed down orally. Upon graduation Guidone worked with Paul Saling decorating public buildings in Hartford. He then freelanced for three years and went on to work for Bancel LaFarge for four years, completing murals throughout the country. He attained a reputation as a religious muralist. He worked for the Public Works of Art Project and then completed 52 easel works for the WPA Federal Arts Project. His work was allocated to Troup Junior High School in New Haven, Hamden High School, Connecticut School for Boys, New Haven Public Library, the Community Chest of New Haven, Long Lane Farm, Rocky Hill Soldiers’ Home, and the Undercliff Sanatorium. Later in life he became a Professor Emeritus at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut. Guidone was married twice. After his first wife died in 1935, he married Winifred Lillian Herrmann who was a college educated concert musician and had her own radio show named the Winifred Lillian Herrmann Music Hour in New Haven. He lived in East Haven at the time of his death on August 7, 1990. He was 92.

 Sources: WPA Artist’s Work Card; WPA Biography; Obituary, New Haven Register, August 8^th, 1990; “Wed While at Yale,” New York Times, June 27, 1927; WPA Federal Arts Project Newsletter, August 1938; AskART; Social Security Death Index; Reverend Vera Niestemski.