page_title: Ettore DeGrazia
section_title: Childhood
hierarchical_section_title: Ettore DeGrazia / Childhood
caption_attribution_description: English: DeGrazia in Italy circa 1923
context_page_description: Ettore "Ted" DeGrazia was an American impressionist, painter, sculptor, composer, actor, director, designer, architect, jeweler, and lithographer. Described as "the world's most reproduced artist", DeGrazia is known for his colorful images of Native American children of the American Southwest and other Western scenes. DeGrazia also painted several series of exhibitions like the Papago Legends, Padre Kino, Cabeza de Vaca.
context_section_description: Born to Italian immigrants, DeGrazia's family immigrated in 1898 from the Italian regions of Calabria and Campania. His parents, Salvador Domenico De Grazia and Lucia Gagliardi,  were strong people who worked very hard for their family of seven children. His father and uncles were copper miners in Morenci, Arizona Territory, where DeGrazia was born in 1909. Arizona achieved statehood in 1912.
  
  DeGrazia's graduation from Morenci High School was delayed until the age of 23. The family moved back to Italy in 1920. The move was a result of the Morenci Mines closing that same year. DeGrazia's father took his family to the only home they had—Italy.  While there, DeGrazia became fascinated with cathedral art and with the surrounding monasteries. He also, as usual, got himself into trouble: "One time in the cathedral. I was pumping the organ it was high mass and, somehow or other, in the middle of the mass I quit pumping.  There was no music. There were all those quivering, out-of-tune, voices. Two monks came, picked me up by the ears (and) led me down some spiral stairs- and out I went."
   
  Another time, before the family moved to Italy, DeGrazia had sculpted 'The Head of Christ', out of clay he gathered in the desert of Morenci. DeGrazia baked the 'Head of Christ' in the same oven his mother used to bake bread. This early work is now on display in his final studio/residence, the Gallery in the Sun in Tucson, Arizona.
  The family moved back to America in 1925 when the Morenci mines reopened. This is when DeGrazia paints his very first painting: 'Indian Faces.' It was a crude, cracked canvas piece, which DeGrazia admitted was not very good. In primary school, his teachers had trouble pronouncing his name, Ettore, so they nicknamed him Ted. He has been called that ever since. Because of the move to Italy, DeGrazia had forgotten how to speak English and as a result, he was put in first grade at the age of sixteen. He had to work his way through elementary school, Junior high, and high school. After graduation in 1932, DeGrazia worked the mines with his family. It was then he realized he did not want to live life as a miner. He said that he couldn't live without the sun light—and in the early mining days of Morenci there was no open pit mine. The miners went underground before the sun rose, and came out when the sun went down.
  "I had a full beard and was twenty-three when I graduated from high school, into a world hit by the depression. I knew I would be underground all of my life if I didn't succeed at something else."
caption: DeGrazia in Italy c. 1923
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