He was a Jewish artist of Russian descent.By age 6, Markitante was decorating the walls of his home with childish originals. “My parents knew by then they couldn’t stop me from painting,” he said.
Russian-born, Samuel Markitante had three brothers and four sisters, all talented musicians as well as physicians. “I was the first to give up music. You must concentrate on only one endeavor at a time,” explained the diminutive artist.
At 16, Markitante entered the Academy of Sculpture and Painting in Odessa, Russia. He, the youngest student, enrolled. Thus began a painting and sculpturing career that has spanned seven decades and a multitude of countries.
From Russia, where Markitante’s talent was acclaimed by the czar, he moved to Paris, where for 30 years he occupied the former studio of the famed French artist, Renoir.
Named director of General L’Art in France, comparable to a Cabinet post in the United States, Markitante taught, painted and sculptured the famous of Europe, including the royal family of Monaco and busts of the 46 foreign following World War I.
Besides the famous, Markitante often painted the French Brittany countryside, his yearly vacation retreat. A frequent subject was the family of the Brittany fisherman.
At 30 years old he is forced to leave the social upheaval in Russia. With a handful of drawings and paintings and some personal items, he arrives in France.
He became a successful artist. Once Germany took control of France, Markitante had to hide. He was finally captured and imprisoned by the Nazis for 3 years. Faced with an almost certain death his faith and his talent combine to make him a survivor. He stayed in France Refusing to paint and sculpt Nazi heroes, the well-known artist was imprisoned in various concentration camps for three years during World War II.
Besides losing those important working years of his life, Markitante lost his wife, a young girl 17 years his junior.
“I gave her my fame and fortune; I also gave her freedom, so sure was I of my death,” said Markitante. Upon regaining his freedom, he discovered she had remarried. He never saw her again.
Grateful to his American liberators, Markitante vowed to bring his art to this country. He moved to Southern California in 1954.
Markitante loves “Amerik,” But he constantly chastises its citizens for their lack of culture, their ignorance of art and music.
“Amerik has no really famous artist,” Markitante maintains. “They aren’t even taught how to hold a paintbrush!” Markitante, whose sculptured-like impressionistic paintings are achieved by using only a palette knife, claims all possible colors and forms can be learned by painting the natural forms of fresh fruit and eggs.
Inflicted with heart trouble for the past three years, Markitante lived in semiretirement with Cecile, his wife of 19 years. She was a talented pianist and feverent Markitante admirer.
Markitante never painted from pictures. He prefered to travel throughout the Westside, painting the Santa Monica Mountains, bluffs and ocean. Only one painting remains unsold from a 100-picture Pacific Palisades collection he started 10 years ago.
He still paints in his back-yard workroom every day but wishes he had more energy for the teaching he loves.
