Don Cincone

Artist Don Cincone talks about his life traveling the world and how he developed and refined his personal style through God’s inspiration.

Article by April Clark Honaker | Photography by Kelly Moore Clark

ARTIST DON CINCONE is a man with such breadth of knowledge and experience it can’t be captured in a single conversation or a couple thousand words, which is why he’s working on a two-volume memoir about his life. Born in Alto, Louisiana, a small, unincorporated community in Richland Parish, Cincone has traveled the world, served in the U.S. Army, spent time on the east coast and the West Coast, and had his work featured in a major 1965 Technicolor film starring Dick Van Dyke, James Garner, Elke Sommer and Angie Dickinson.
As a child, Cincone was always drawing. “There was never a time in my life that I didn’t want to be an artist,” he said. In the beginning, he drew mostly from imagination and recalls an instance when one of his creations inspired awe among his friends. They were convinced he’d drawn an elephant and wanted to know how he’d done it, since he’d never seen one. Driven by a desire to improve, Cincone found ways to challenge himself. One of the first big challenges he set for himself was to draw his grandfather’s Ford Model A in second grade. He was able to draw it but admits that he didn’t have the knowledge of perspective he needed at the time. “If I had understood at that point what I was not doing, I could have drawn it much earlier,” he said.

When he got a little older, Cincone saw the Famous Artists School advertised in a magazine and decided to apply. The school was founded by team of artists led by Albert Dorne and Norman Rockwell. Its purpose was to make high-quality art instruction accessible to the general public. At the same time, the school had admission standards, and Cincone applied multiple times before being accepted in eighth grade. After his drawing was accepted, a traveling salesperson from the school contacted Cincone’s family and came to interview them. Soon, Cincone was enrolled in a correspondence course taught by some of the country’s top illustrators. In the course, he was taught new skills, critiqued and graded. It was a period of great growth and development for him in the area of technical skill.
Although he was born in Alto, Cincone spent most of his childhood and teenage years in Monroe, Louisiana, and graduated from Carroll High School. At the time, Carroll did not have a visual arts curriculum, but the principal was supportive of the arts, and there was an art club sponsored by supportive faculty. Naturally, Cincone became involved in this club, which developed a competitive spirit. During their first year competing in the district art contest, Cincone won first place in a category of oil painting and also in watercolor. That year, four students from their club earned the right to compete in the state competition at Southern University in Baton Rouge.

Unfortunately, Cincone said they were accused of cheating and told that high school students could not create work of their caliber. Although he was disappointed, Cincone said, “It also inspired me.” Afterward, Cincone made a plan and studied what pieces had won. He also decided that knowing more about the competition itself and the judges would increase his chances of success. One particular judge from Tuskegee, Alabama, practiced a method known as the inside-out method of drawing and claimed it was Leonardo da Vinci’s method. Cincone took it upon himself to learn this method, and when he competed the following year, he earned first place in oil and watercolor, as well as second place in sculpture, at the state competition.

While he was still in high school, Cincone also found a way to make money using the skills he’d been building. During his junior year, he started working for Central Sign Company in Monroe. At the time, they employed two sign painters, when Cincone described as excellent artists, but they had one particular job they found difficult to manage. The assignment was to create a cowboy sign for Saddle and Spur Restaurant, located at the corner of North 18th Street and Louisville Avenue. According to Cincone, the size and proportions for the sign were not ideal, but he was able to produce a successful design, so it was blown up and used. Together, his work at the sign company and his constant practice equipped Cincone to paint and draw when he graduated from high school. However, Cincone knew he still had room for improvement. Although he had wanted to pursue art in college, there were few options for him at the time. Cincone graduated from high school in 1955 and said segregation didn’t truly end in Louisiana until well into the 1970s.

While Southern University, a historically black college, offered courses for those interested in teaching art, it did not have a fine arts track at the time. Cincone was more interested in making a career as an artist than in teaching art. Because Southern didn’t offer what he needed, Cincone decided to enlist in the Army. Then, while stationed in Germany, he said, “I was inspired to create a course of study in the art of painting, which took me from Copenhagen to Rome and to many points in between.” Cincone essentially charted his own course and studied the things he felt would benefit him most. He’d always been motivated to learn as much as he could, and Europe, with its rich artistic history, offered endless opportunities. According to Cincone, the path he followed through Europe was curated by the Holy Spirit.

He recalls being in Copenhagen, where he didn’t know of many outstanding visual artists at the time, but he was inspired instead by other European artists and by the literature and music. He’d always been connected to literature and music—his mom wrote poetry, and he enjoyed being part of choral groups in high school and college. But Copenhagen truly broadened his horizons. He encountered Kierkegaard and Hans Christian Andersen, and he visited the castle that was featured in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” Overall, his time in Copenhagen had a profound effect and deepened his understanding of the scope of art. Afterward, he had a greater sense of the interconnectedness of all creative endeavors. “I began to understand how all of this comes together,” he said, “and it comes from the same place–inspired of God and centered in feeling.”

One of the greatest lessons Cincone has learned in his life as an artist is to listen. “I listen to the feeling, but I listen first to the inspiration,” he said. “As I start, I listen to both of them, not in the physical sense but in the intuitive sense. And that happens in silence. Quietness is the incubator for all that is created.” This lesson came to him in Venice, while out one evening with a German professor of European history. As they walked, the professor would describe the details of each building’s past. But what Cincone noticed most in those moments, even amidst the ferries and the footsteps and voices of other tourists, was the fact that everything still seemed strangely quiet. After pondering the strange quietness, he realized the reason he could still make out so many sounds in the busy city, even quiet ones, was the absence of cars. There is no automobile traffic in Venice.

Cincone said his journey through Europe helped him grow creatively and spiritually in such a way that he could allow God’s inspiration to flow through him. He could interpret that inspiration through the mediums he chose—painting and drawing. At the same time, however, Cincone had yet to develop his own personal style. He saw the signature style of all the masters—Rembrandt, Ruben etc. According to Cincone, their work was distinctive—recognizable. “They didn’t really have to sign if you knew their work,” he said, “and I knew that was one of the most significant achievements you could ever have as an artist.” Cincone strived for that, and he’d developed many technical skills that allowed him to imitate the style of the masters he’d studied, but at that point in time didn’t yet have a distinctive, recognizable style of his own.

Despite not having a personal style, Cincone was in search of it. He recalls the day before he left Alto to move to Monroe. One of the family’s friends, a woman they called Miss Stell, hugged him and kissed him, and her last words to him were “Be yourself.” “I was struck by that,” Cincone said. He didn’t truly understand the significance of the words back then and even found himself thinking, “How can I be anyone other than me?” But as he struggled to define himself as an artist and to find his place in the world, those words took on new significance.

Cincone didn’t develop a style all his own until he was working at an art agency in California that represented 350 other talented artists. They were essentially competing with each other for recognition and sales, but Cincone had gotten his foot in the door through sheer painting ability. In the beginning, he achieved success with still lifes of fruits done realistically, and eventually he added flowers and a few other things. Cincone said he was painting for the agency during the day from 7 a.m. to 5 or 6 p.m. But then, after spending some time with his wife and kids, he would get up again around 1 a.m. and paint for himself. “What I was really doing,” he said, “was searching for my style.” During those private moments in the middle of the night, Cincone found himself returning to that uninhibited place children inhabit so naturally, and an evolution happened. His style evolved into something resembling the work he continues to produce today.

During that time of evolution and discovery, Cincone’s first wife Katherine said something to him that gave him a fresh perspective. She would often help him load work he was transporting to the agency, and she had a knack for recognizing the work that would be accepted, as well as the work that would be returned. On one particular day, she was convinced that so many pieces would be coming back that Cincone felt compelled to respond. He’d always felt she was an artist even though she didn’t think of herself that way, but in that moment, he said, “You don’t know anything about art.” Her response was perfect. She said, “You’re right. I don’t know anything about art, but I know what I like.” Cincone said those words finally struck home for him. He realized that he could have the greatest idea in the world, but if no one liked it because of the way he presented it, that would be a problem. As a result, he started to think more about how people responded to his work, especially with regard to color. Flowers and the way they express color were particularly inspirational. In his entire time in Los Angeles, Cincone said he only encountered one person who didn’t like flowers. “Flowers have color,” he said. “There’s not a limit to what flowers might express in color.”

After considering his wife’s words, Cincone began to apply more of the principles of color that he’d learned during his studies in Europe. He also learned a great deal about color through collaborations with interior designers. “The way they group colors and how they make their presentations creates an exquisitely beautiful place,” he said.

As he continued to refine his style, Cincone painted what his agency wanted, but he also started to bring in some of his own work for consideration. At first, the agent didn’t think anyone would be interested in the new work, but one day, the agent’s wife caught a glimpse of it and felt differently. As a result, she asked if she could personally consign four of his more distinctive pieces. The next week, she’d sold all four. “The style took off,” Cincone said. People like Vincent Price and Godfrey Cambridge bought his work, and it was at that time that he took on the name Cincone. His last name at birth had actually been Wills, but the agent suggested he go with something that deliberately sounded European, because the European painters were in vogue at the time, and he felt Cincone’s work fit well with their style.

Shortly after Cincone started seeing success, film producer Ross Hunter approached the agency in search of an artist whose work would be a good fit for his film “The Art of Love,” which would star James Garner, Dick Van Dyke, Elke Sommer and Angie Dickinson. Hunter saw some of Cincone’s work and loved it. He ultimately commissioned 85 paintings for use in the film and even commissioned a piece for his own collection. “That movie did much to launch my career,” Cincone said. However, as an African American, he also experienced some discrimination in the midst of his success. He learned that some of the movie’s staff complained when they learned he was black. Fortunately, the head of the props department defended Cincone, but when the movie was finished, his name did not appear in the credits. According to Cincone, it was common practice to omit African Americans from credits at the time. Fortunately, much has been done since then to document their stories and restore their recognition. Cincone said that “The Art of Love” is now archived in a collection at the University of Southern California that was created for this purpose. “I have far better credits now,” he said, “and that has been meaningful.”

Since achieving success in California, Cincone has continued to paint in a style all his own, and he credits God as the sole source of his inspiration. “Ideas come to me,” he said. “Inspiration is like a lone spark in a million midnights, and then it’s gone.” But Cincone said his memory of the image is not as important as how he felt in that moment. What draws him to painting also draws him closer to God. Over time, Cincone said he’s also learned how special it is to be connected with like-minded people. “I’ve learned I need people who need people,” he said, “People whose aspiration is to seek good for others and contribute to all of humanity, and that’s what drives me. If I have any semblance of an anchor as far as personality, that has to be a big part of it.”

When Cincone paints, he does so largely for others. “One of my biggest awakenings,” he said, “has been to see that in what I receive from God, there is a message. It’s a communion, and in time, I’ve learned that the message that’s given to me doesn’t stop with me. It now inhabits the painting. Each person gathers to themselves something from the Creator that came through me, the conduit, and that, for me, is really the finishing of the painting, and in a sense, it’s never finished, because it becomes intergenerational.” For Cincone, knowing that such a message, captured in a moment of communion with God, continues to touch people’s hearts for the life of the painting is deeply rewarding.