See ‘Good and Plenty: The World of Paul Spina’ in Canton

As a child, Paul Spina watched World War II dramas and cowboy movies with his father while eating Good & Plenty candy. The experience became a motif throughout his autobiographical art, connecting childhood nostalgia with the dark realities of war.

That duality is seen in “Good and Plenty: The World of Paul Spina,” an exhibition of more than 30 of Spina’s original works at the Canton Museum of Art from Nov. 24 through March 7. His pieces explore war, the working-class and ethnic tensions he faced growing up in an Italian family in a predominantly Polish neighborhood.

“His story is the quintessential American story,” says Christy Davis, curator of exhibitions at the Canton Museum of Art.

Born in Brooklyn in 1937, Spina began his art career in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood in the 1960s. In the 1970s, he worked as a freelance illustrator and educator, with his work appearing in prominent publications like The New York Times and New York Magazine.

Spina moved to Cleveland in 2016 with Esther Trepal, his partner of 36 years who cared for him during the late stages of Alzheimer’s disease prior to the artist’s death in 2017. Trepal, who now lives in Wickliffe, reached out to the museum about donating pieces from Spina’s collection. When Davis and fellow museum curator Kaleigh Pisani visited to see the works, they decided the pieces needed an exhibition. 

“It’s like you’re opening a treasure chest and rediscovering something that can be shared with the world,” Davis says.

Look for the capsule-shaped Good & Plenty candies and historical figures woven throughout Spina’s surrealist- and pop art-inspired paintings and drawings. He also references commercialism in his collages through toys, knickknacks and other found objects he encountered while walking through New York. 

1001 Market Ave. N., Canton 44702, 330/453-7666, cantonart.org

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