Don Cincone
Don Cincone, an internationally-known artist, was born in a sharecroppers shack in Alto, Louisiana in 1936 to two black parents. Due to living on a sharecropping farm, Cincone doesn’t remember when he started school as all able hands were required for the cotton harvest and to work on the farm. However, the few schoolyears he does remember were spent in a small one-room schoolhouse. In this schoolhouse, Cincone says he learned his way of drawing through the African culture. “I remember how drawing, drama, and singing were all intermingled with math, history, and reading,” he said. His family moved to Monroe when Cincone was only seven years old. While there he attended Carroll High School. He then later attended Southern University where he earned his Bachelor's degree in Art. Unsure what to do following graduation, Cincone asked the head of the Art Department for his advice. The department head advised him to take up a career teaching art. Although against the advice, Cincone instead decided to explore Europe. After touring there, he headed towards Haiti and Mexico, then Canada. After Canada, Cincone moved onto New York and while there Cincone got married. The newlywed couple soon after moved onto California. Cincone tried to create a fashion career, yet he was told that his designs weren’t the “kind” of fashion design wanted in that location. Cincone then decided to go back to his first love: art. Due to many requests Cincone began to teach art from 1966 until 1993. Universal Studios even commissioned him to create eighty-five original paintings for the movie “The Art of Love” (1965). Cincone’s art has been held in the collections of such notable art collectors as Walt Disney, Henri Mancini, Ross Hunter, Leonard Bernstein, and Edward G. Robinson.