Obituary: Robert Alberetti, 86: Artist And Teacher

Information and Photo Courtesy Green Funeral Home

NEW FAIRFIELD, CT — Robert Alberetti died on June 16 at Danbury Hospital after living valiantly in his final years with Multiple Systems Atrophy.

He was born on Dec. 21, 1935 in Boston to Italian immigrant parents who not only showered him with love but with their homecooked meals and baking. The key for upward mobility in their household was education, and Robert’s acceptance into Boston Latin School set him off on a trajectory that would lead to a career as an artist and teacher with multiple degrees and honors.
He earned a BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design and an MS from Rhode Island School of Design, and received his MFA from the University of Arizona. He joined the art faculty at Western Connecticut State University in 1963, and taught there for 40 years, continuing to teach as a professor emeritus for yet another decade. While he served as department chair for six years during this time, teaching was his passion.

Bob had served in the army and was in the Canal Zone during the Cuban crisis; afterwards he remained in Panama to teach art at Fort Amador until 1963, when he returned to The States and joined the arts faculty at what was then Danbury State Teachers College.

In quick succession, he met and married Mary Lou Capellaro, a New Fairfield native at the college, and they moved into their modernist home in Possum Ridge in 1967. Each established working studios, and Mary Lou began transforming what had been a remnant of farmland into a garden oasis.

He and Mary Lou savored their trips to New York City with its museums and galleries just an easy train ride away. Later, when they could afford it, they began to travel – visiting an astonishing 70 countries in all. Armed with Mary Lou’s camera, and their watercolor kits, and notebooks, these excursions often prompted Bob’s exuberant reports from the field. These were often sprinkled with Proustian references to the wondrous meals he and Mary Lou had encountered in out-of-the-way places.

During his spare time, Bob was known as “Bargain Bob” and his hunts for bargains at The Salvation Army and The Good Will were legendary. One never knew what he’d focus his trained eye on – whether an elegant Italian sports coat in mint condition, or discarded books and maps that could be incorporated into his collages or inspire his abstract expressionist paintings. But he loved the thrill of the chase, and he often found riches amidst the detritus.

Bob’s work, which is included in 25 corporate collections, was exhibited widely both close to home, in solo shows at the Blue Mountain Gallery in NYC, and WCSU, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, The Mattatuck Museum, and further afield, including The Panama Museum of Art, The De Young Museum, San Francisco, and The Pentagon, Arlington, VA. And when he wasn’t teaching at the university, he taught workshops from his home studio as well as at The Center for Contemporary Printmaking in Norwalk, the Washington Art Association, and at the Caifiordi School of Art in Pietralunga, Italy, and at the Southern Connecticut State University summer program in Urbino, Italy.

When looking back over a life that also included the excruciating and untimely loss of his eldest son, Robbie, and years of his own mounting health problems, one has to marvel at Bob’s inner strength. He found a way to persevere – and he continued to delight in his students for as long as he was able. Above all, in his final years he rejoiced in the gifts of family.

Bob leaves behind Mary Lou, his wife of 57 years, his daughter, Chiara Milott, son-in-law, Jonathan Milott, and grandsons Jackson and Cade Milott, of Brooklyn, NY, his son, Michael, daughter-in-law, Gwyneth, and granddaughter, Emma Alberetti, of Binghamton, NY, and sister, Lauraine Lombara, of Beverly Farms, MA.

A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated at 12:00pm on Friday, June 24, 2022 at St. Edward the Confessor Church, Brush Hill Rd., New Fairfield, CT. Burial will follow in Gerow Cemetery, New Fairfield.

Friends will be received from 5:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m. on Thursday, June 23, 2022 at the Green Funeral Home, 57 Main St., Danbury. Those attending are requested to wear masks.
In lieu of flowers, contributions in Bob's memory may be made to Prep for Prep, 328 W. 71st St., NY, NY 10023.

The family will be celebrating Bob’s well-lived life in the way he would have wanted – perhaps remembering him in his often-riotous studio, when a work was in-progress, or seated at the family table, where he was known to sneak the remnants of pastry crust off the dessert plates that had not yet been cleared. Mary Lou did attempt to rein in his passion for bread and pastries, but how could one really say no to a man who got such joy from simple pleasures?