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ABOUT THE ARTIST

T hroughout his award-winning career in newspaper graphics, Philip Dionisio remained committed to the tenets of journalism -- accuracy, lack of bias, and cold, hard facts --  while enlightening five decades of Long Island readers.   Newsday's former Graphics Director now savors a different challenge.  Escaping the constraints of journalistic objectivity, Dionisio has returned to his fine-art roots with works that express his personal affinity for the sea, the sky and the pristine land of Block Island. 

For Dionisio, a private pilot since 1962, packing his paints and palette into his private Piper plane is a poetic pilgrimage.  Ever since his first flight to Block Island decades ago, he's dreamed of combining his love of aviation and his passion for art.  That vision became a reality in 2003, after he bought a home on the New England isle and made it his artist's retreat.  From the lighthouses to whale-watching to the imposing Mohegan Bluffs to the brisk ocean air, Block Island's natural charms inform much of Dionisio's creative passion.

A 1961 graduate of Manhattan's School of Visual Arts, Dionisio joined Newsday in 1964 and spent 40 years there as an illustrator, page designer and cartographer.  He created graphics for three Pulitzer Prize-winning Newsday efforts, notably the TWA Flight 800 tragedy.  Utilizing his aviation expertise, Dionisio provided a sensitive depiction of the controversial plane crash, for which he won the 1996 Society of Professional Journalists' Sigma Delta Chi Award for informational graphics. 

Born in Long Island City, N.Y., he joined the Marines in the 1950s, ran a base newspaper, and designed posters for the Armed Forces.  Dionisio's graphics have garnered international acclaim, and been featured in Germany's Der Spiegel magazine, on "The Phil Donahue Show," at Hofstra and Stony Brook Universities, Montauk Lighthouse Museum, and Cradle of Aviation Museum.