Daniel Celentano’s family emigrated from Italy to America, where he was born on December 21, 1902 in Harlem, New York, the fifth of fifteen children. Showing his talent for art when he was 15, he became the first pupil of Thomas Hart Benton, whose influence is evident in Celentano’s style. He attended the Cape Cod School of Art, the New York School of Fine and Applied Arts, and the National Academy of Design. Celentano beccame an accomplished painter of the American scene in the 1930s, and painted several public murals commissioned through the government’s Works Progress Administration (WPA).