Department: Archives
The Eminent Supreme Artist, Revisited
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As the archivist for the Sigma Alpha Epsilon Foundation, I have the opportunity to meet some fascinating people. Some I meet when they donate an artifact to the collection, some when they have a research question to be answered. Still others I am only able to get to know something about through the artifacts and documents they leave behind. But this past June, I had the great fortune to meet the daughter of a remarkable brother — and to learn more about her father’s contribution to Sigma Alpha Epsilon — when Anna Carugati, along with her husband and daughter, decided to visit the Levere Memorial Temple.
The family was in town to see Carugati’s son graduate from the University of Chicago. Anna, though, was hoping to see a painting or two at the national headquarters. She knew that her father had been heavily involved with the Fraternity, so she wondered how many pieces of his work we had in our collection. She mentioned that he had done several paintings for the organization over the years in his own unique, photorealistic style. His name, Eraldo Carugati (Simpson ’41), wasn’t familiar to me, but I knew we had several unsigned paintings in our collection.
As we walked through the Temple, we stopped at several paintings. Many, she said, appeared to be her father’s work, but since he seldom signed his pieces, we weren’t completely sure. Then she stopped in front of a painting of former Eminent Supreme Archon Rex A. Smith (Nebraska ’24). Smith was depicted wearing a dark blue suit and maroon tie, leaning on a pedestal that reflected his folded hands and onyx ring. “This is his,” she said. “I remember him painting that ring.” Anna went on to explain that her father loved painting hands and other fine details such as drops of water or the bricks in a wall. The Smith portrait, it seemed, was a summary of the Carugati style. We also looked at a painting of former ESA Fred H. Turner (Illinois ’22). Turner was shown lighting a pipe, his hands and face represented with equal precision — and again, Anna confirmed her father’s handiwork.
Carugati had passed away more than a decade ago. Tragically, most of her father’s work had been destroyed in a fire. The family was devastated by the loss, so Anna felt even more close to her father’s work while she spent time at the Temple. After a few more minutes of discussion and some more time admiring the paintings, Anna left with her family, but I was left to wonder: Just who was Eraldo Carugati? What other pieces had he painted for the Fraternity? Fortunately, two articles about Carugati that appeared in The Record in 1979 and 1984 provided some answers.
His story begins in 1935, in the city of Milan, Italy, when the 14-year-old Carugati was forced to drop out of school and to work full-time to help support his family. His life wasn’t all about making money, however, and he continued his studies by enrolling in the night program of the Suola Superiore D’Arti Applicate. Of the more than 4,000 applicants to the prestigious program, Carugati was one of just 300 accepted — and one of only seven to graduate from the grueling seven-day- per-week program. But just before his graduation in 1941, Carugati was drafted into the Italian army to fight in the next conflict that would engulf most of the world.
In 1943, he was captured by the Nazis and spent the next two years being shuttled between various Nazi POW camps, or stalags. As the conflict drew to a close and the Allied forces began their final push against the Third Reich, Carugati and a few other prisoners were able to escape from Stalag VI-D in Dortmund, Germany. They ran by night and hid by day, fearing that their POW uniforms would give them away if they were caught. Eventually they reached the lines of the Allied troops and were taken in, fed and clothed. Carugati, like many Italians of his generation, grew up with a sense of awe for all things American so, when he saw that the Americans treated even the lowest-ranking man with respect, he decided on the spot to become a citizen of the United States.
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