Tom S. Fricano — The Afterlife of Process

An homage to the printmaker who turned repetition into revelation, and whose philosophy of craft echoes the restoration rituals within Acanthus Home.

In every age, there are makers who treat process as sacred, those who understand that the act of creation, repeated with discipline and grace, becomes its own form of permanence. Tom S. Fricano (1930–2000) was such an artist. A printmaker, painter, and educator, he spent nearly five decades exploring the tactile dialogue between material and idea. His life’s work reads like an etching itself: patient, precise, layered with time.

Born in Chicago, Fricano trained at the Art Institute of Chicago, earned his B.F.A. from Bradley University in 1953, and his M.F.A. from the University of Illinois in 1956. From these foundations, he built a career devoted to both making and teaching. His early acclaim came through national exhibitions and awards from the Library of Congress, the Chicago Art Institute, and the Philadelphia National Print Exhibition. In 1960, a Fulbright Grant carried him to Florence, where he studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti and absorbed centuries of European technique before reinterpreting them through an American lens.

Returning home, Fricano became head of the Printmaking Department at California State University, Northridge, where he taught an entire generation of artists the moral discipline of craft. Among his students was my grandmother, who studied under him for many years. She often spoke of his quiet precision, how he would pause before printing and let silence settle like dust on wet paper, as if reverence itself were part of the process. Her stories became my earliest understanding of what artistry meant: not performance, but patience. Not perfection, but devotion.

Fricano’s teaching philosophy transcended printmaking. “Good art,” he once said, “has to deal with all the principles: design, color, message, and dimension. Emotion is important, as well as whether the work is objective or non-objective. One is looking for the quality that inspires the best.” His classroom embodied that ideal, a sanctuary of experiment where the method was as meaningful as the outcome.

Among his most evocative works is Portrait by Frans Hals, an etching that reimagines the exuberance of the Dutch master’s brushwork through the quiet precision of intaglio.

From Acanthus Home’s private collection, an early etching by Tom S. Fricano titled Portrait by Frans Hals. A quiet study in lineage, craft, and the persistence of the hand.

What Is Intaglio

Intaglio is one of the oldest and most intricate printmaking techniques. The image is carved into a copper or zinc plate, then filled with ink. After the surface is carefully wiped clean, dampened paper is laid over the plate and run through a high-pressure press. The enormous force pulls the ink out of the recessed lines and into the fibers of the paper, leaving a faint embossing that reveals the exact pressure of the artist’s hand.

It is a medium of patience and precision. Each line must be cut, inked, and printed with intention. Every print is a record of touch, of repetition, of quiet mastery. The result is a depth and richness impossible to achieve through surface methods, a quality that feels almost sculptural in its presence.

Intaglio carries within it the same values we honor at Acanthus Home: craft as devotion, material as memory, and the belief that beauty lives in the time and care required to create it.

Where Fricano pressed ink into dampened paper, our artisans restore the quiet luster of antique wood. Both practices reflect the same devotion, the persistence of the hand and the belief that true artistry emerges through patience.

Fricano’s later Butterfly and Sunspot series ventured into abstraction, translating sunlight, dust, and air into visual rhythm. Each mark on the plate was a breath, each print a record of the artist’s faith in the physical act of making.

For Acanthus Home, Fricano’s philosophy feels intimately familiar. His prints are not merely images but the trace of the maker, much like the heirlooms restored within our atelier. The rituals of careful preparation, close observation, and attentive touch connect his studio to ours, linking generations of makers through shared devotion to craft.

His life reminds us that legacy is not measured in scale, but in continuity. The printmaker’s press, the restorer’s bench, the quiet rhythm of repetition: each gesture builds upon the last. What remains is the trace of the maker, a fingerprint in varnish, a pressure mark in paper, a whisper of continuity linking object to memory.

At Acanthus Home, we often speak of the Afterlife of Objects, the way craftsmanship preserves meaning beyond its moment. Fricano embodied the Afterlife of Process. His career, like a well-restored heirloom, reveals how devotion to method can become an enduring form of beauty.

His work, held in the Library of Congress, the Peoria Art Center, and numerous private collections, continues to hum with quiet authority, a reminder that permanence is born not from grand gestures but from the faithful repetition of care.

There are artists whose names did not travel far, yet their work shaped the hands that shaped us. At Acanthus Home, we preserve these lineages, one restored heirloom and one rediscovered story at a time.