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Aaron Fastove

Aaron Fastove
(Fastovsky)

Artist

1899 - 1979

Aaron Fastove (Fastovsky) was born in Chernobyl (near Kiev), about 1899. He came from a large family where his father was a ship builder on the Pripet river. As a young man he was sent to Kiev to attend the Kiev Conservatory of Music, studying the violin. Around 1923, he left Russia and immigrated to America via Poland and Cuba, finally arriving in New York in 1923. There he made his living as a violinist, until, at the end of the Depression, in 1932; spurred by the need to earn a living, he applied for a position at the Index of American Design, which was part of the WPA. He was hired as an illustrator of American Crafts that were then on exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. There he rendered accurate reproductions of objects in watercolors for many colored objects, and in pencil for silver objects. These works are now in the National Gallery of Art. During the war years, he was a technical illustrator for various Army technical manuals. It was at the time that he started working for the Index of American Design, that he also started painting to satisfy himself. He painted mostly in oils, did some watercolors, but it was not until many years later that he attempted to paint with pastels. Living in the Bronx, next to Bronx Park provided most of the inspiration for his paintings. Later when he acquired an automobile, he ranged around the Bronx painting scenes that he found in the more rural areas of the city.

In the 1970’s he shared a home in Willow, NY, not far from Woodstock, where he produced many of his later paintings. On vacations to Cape Cod, and to Europe, he always took along paints and made paintings. He painted on whatever materials were at hand, and his oil works can be found on canvas, canvas boards, wooden panels, and plastic sheets. His pastels were on more traditional paper.

He painted until his death in 1979.