Vincent Longo, Artist and Teacher

Vincent Longo, whose distinguished career as a painter and printmaker spanned more than six decades and whose influence as a teacher was felt by three generations of artists, died at home in Amagansett on Sept. 4 with his wife, Kate Davis, at his side. He was 94 and had had cancer for 18 months.

Although he came of age as a member of the New York School, from the beginning and throughout his career his work remained resolutely his own. It was rooted in geometry, a deep understanding of the effects of color, and boundless curiosity about the art and philosophy of other cultures as well as his own.

 The Buddhist mandala and Hindu yantra were recurring motifs in his work, less for their symbolism, he said, than for their simple renewal of archetypal forms, which he believed had a bearing on contemporary discourse. 

In 1957, Mr. Longo was hired to teach at Bennington College, where he remained for 10 years. Among his colleagues were the color field painters Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, and Paul Feeley, as well as the influential critic Clement Greenberg. He taught from 1967 to 2001 at Hunter College, where he was named the first Phyllis and Joseph Caroff Chair of Fine Arts.

The artist Sanford Wurmfeld, one of Mr. Longo’s closest friends and for many years a colleague at Hunter College, said, “Though his formal education ended with a certificate from Cooper Union and a year at the Brooklyn Museum School, he made himself with his remarkable innate intelligence and avid literacy into one of the most perceptive and well-informed artists of his generation.”

Janet Goleas, an artist, curator, and critic, met Mr. Longo during his exhibition at Eric Firestone Gallery in East Hampton. “I was stunned when I walked into his studio — it was so electric. Color relationships so vivid they took your breath away. He was the real thing: a wonderful, devoted artist,” she said.

He was born in Manhattan on Feb. 15, 1923, to Salvatore Longo and the former Margaritta Stigliano. Orphaned at the age of 2, he and his brother, Frank, were sent to St. Agatha’s Home for Children in Nanuet, N.Y., where they lived for 12 years. The property was fenced in, and trips to the world outside were rare, he once said. 

His wife, who grew up in Rockland County, actually had a summer job at St. Agatha’s many decades later. “When I met Vinnie as a graduate student at Hunter, and he told me he grew up there, it sparked a connection, a recognition,” she said. Ms. Davis is also an artist.

He and his brother eventually went to live with an aunt in Brooklyn, and Mr. Longo studied commercial art at Textile High School in Manhattan before attending Cooper Union and the Brooklyn Museum Art School, where he studied with Max Beckmann and Ben Shahn. He had his first solo exhibition at the museum in 1953.

Since then, his work has been exhibited continuously. It is in dozens of public collections, among them the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. A retrospective of his prints was held at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Detroit Institute of Art. He was also a member of the National Academy

Highly respected as an artist and teacher, news of his death brought many testimonials. Thornton Willis, a fellow abstract painter, called Mr. Longo “one of the kindest and most generous men I have ever known. . . . We traded paintings, and I am so very grateful to have something so beautiful by him. Looking at his strong work, you can feel the love and compassion, the humanity of the man.”

Christine Schiulli, an artist who works in New York and Amagansett, said, “This is such sad news. Vinnie was my professor at Hunter and a really dear person to me.”

For many years, Mr. Longo avoided East Hampton because it was, in his words, an artists’ hangout. He first visited in 1971, soon after he met Ms. Davis. They rented a house and studio on Copeces Lane in Springs for many summers until, in 1988, they bought their house on Windmill Lane in Amagansett. When he was sick, he told friends he was very happy being here. He did not want to go into a nursing home to die, Ms. Davis said.

 In addition to Ms. Davis, whom he married in 1972, he is survived by two sons, Matthew Longo of Cambridge, Mass., and Jason Longo of Duxbury, Vt., from a previous marriage to Pat Adams, who also survives, and three grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at a time and place to be announced.