Andrew Bucci, a Vicksburg native and one of Mississippi’s most celebrated visual artists whose creative legacy spanned nearly eight decades, died Sunday at Hospice Ministries in Ridgeland, Miss., after a brief illness, his family announced today. He was 92.

“I think he was a pioneer,” said Vicksburg artist and Attic Gallery owner Leslie Silver. “He changed the way people appreciated art. He used dashes; he experimented with color. When you would stand back and look at his pictures, all the colors came together and people saw something unique. He changed the way we view art.”

Bucci, who earlier this year returned to Vicksburg from his long-time residence in Fort Washington, Md., had received the state’s most prestigious arts awards and honors.

In 2009, he received the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts from the Mississippi Arts Commission for lifetime achievement, and in 2012 he received the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Lifetime Achievement Award. His painting, “Figure in Green,” was the signature image on the commemorative poster for the 2014 USA International Ballet Competition.

Bucci’s painting of a magnolia flower appears on the 5-cent U.S. postage stamp issued in 1967 for the 150th anniversary of Mississippi statehood. In 1983, he was artist-in-residence for a semester at Delta State University.

“When he won the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts in 2009, it was a wonderful event for this family. His brothers got to attend it with their wives and see him receive it,” Bucci’s nephew Phillip Bucci said. “He was reluctant to receive it, because he felt that even though he was from Mississippi, he had lived in the Washington, D.C. area for more than 60 years, and he felt that an artist who lived in Mississippi should have received the award.”
Bucci was born Jan. 12, 1922, in Vicksburg, where he graduated from St. Aloysius High School.

He took his first art class at All Saints Episcopal School in Vicksburg. In the 1930s, Bucci began studying with Marie Hull in Jackson and continued to do so after he went to college at Louisiana State University where he received a bachelor’s degree in architectural engineering.

After the outbreak of World War II, Bucci was trained as a weather officer at New York University and served on air bases in England and Scotland. When the war ended, he was stationed for several months at Orly Air Base near Paris, which allowed him to take life-drawing classes at the Académie Julian.

In 1947, he enrolled in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, earning a B.F.A. in 1951 and an M.F.A. in 1954. Between degrees he was called back into military service during the Korean War and served as a weather officer for 18 months at Lockbourne Air Force Base in Ohio. He retired from the military with the rank of major.

In the late 1940s, Bucci was among the original group of artists to exhibit work and teach at Mississippi’s first art colony at Allison’s Wells Hotel. After a fire destroyed the hotel in 1963, Bucci continued his affiliation with the arts colony for a number of years after it regrouped. He also exhibited with the Society of Washington Artists and served as president of the Washington Watercolor Society. His work has been collected by major museums throughout Mississippi and the U.S.

He worked as a meteorologist for the U.S. Weather Bureau in Maryland from 1956 until his retirement in 1979, and remained a prolific artist throughout his life and steadily produced artwork up until a few weeks before his death.

He maintained close relationships with two Southern art galleries that played instrumental roles in promoting and exhibiting his work — Brown’s Fine Art & Framing in Jackson, Miss., and Cole Pratt Gallery in New Orleans.

“Andrew was known for his thoughtfulness, humility and sense of humor, which were present with him at all times,” said his niece, Margaret Bucci. “His conversations were as entertaining as they were wide-ranging and reflected his many interests and life experiences. He very much looked forward to resettling in Mississippi, and his family members and friends are heartbroken that he was not able to spend more time with us here”

“He was a kind, witty and loving uncle to his many nieces and nephews,” Phillip Bucci said. “He was very humble, and he viewed his artwork as his hobby. He was witty and had youthful exuberance that he kept up to his death. He was a member of the Kennedy Center and never missed a performance.”

Funeral arrangements are pending with Sebrell Funeral Home in Jackson.

Memorial donations may be made to Belhaven University Marie Hull Society for the Arts, 1500 Peachtree St., Jackson, MS 39202.

Andrew Bucci