Recent paintings by one of the Southland’s outstanding artists are in a transitional stage of blooming from flat, rich, decorative, bejeweled, Persian-like tapestries to a Goyesque drama and a sophisticated re-discovery of deep space. This is especially evident in Moroccan Woman. Most paintings are based on a similar Algerian theme that preoccupied Delacroix and there is even something (only a tamer version) of the same deft brushwork. Amato is not kidding in these romantic pictures. Though he dresses his odalisques in colorful brocades their bland expressions evoke forceful images of forsaken loneliness. He is trying to make his figures communicate something of emotional urgency in these new paintings—and often succeeds. The opportunity of witnessing a key development in the career of an important artist is a fruitful revelation.

—Arthur Secunda