Victor D'Amico (May 19, 1904 – April 1, 1987) was an American teaching artist and the founding Director of the Department of Education of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

"[2] Recognizing learning as a process that is unique in each individual, D'Amico embraced the different ways in which each person's experience, ability and perception require a different approach to teaching.

Victor D’Amico spent his childhood in Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx (New York City); and Cuyahoga in Cleveland (Ohio).

While teaching art education at Teachers College Columbia University in the 1930s, D’Amico met Mabel Birckhead, a student and an artist/teacher.

[17] D’Amico believed that developing an aesthetic vision and art practice was both personally and collectively enriching, as it allows for a greater appreciation of the natural and built world.

By challenging accepted norms and encouraging unconventional perspectives, D’Amico argued that the value of art making far surpassed that of the final product.

D’Amico stressed that through art making, a student would be introduced to elements of design: color, shape and composition that would emerge in everyday objects.

Through them he is introduced to the elements of design, texture, pattern, form, color and rhythms as they become the tools of his activity and his imagination.”[20] D’Amico also explored the role of parents as teachers.

From the Children’s Art Carnival,[3] which promoted play as a form of motivation, to the Young People’s Gallery,[21] which gave high school students the rare experience of curating an exhibition, D’Amico expanded the boundaries of the classroom.

Exhibits, libraries of color reproductions, museum books which students could borrow and take home, teaching portfolios designed for classroom use and art films were among the materials that circulated.

The Young People's Gallery was an “educational experiment” with the intent of making the Museum's collection more accessible to New York public and private schools.

This included community easels, a continuous chain of desks folded flat against two of the walls and a large screen that covered an entire wall of the gallery that could be opened to form narrow drop shelves on which paintings may be stood and easily removed to make way for more paintings during demonstrations and lectures to classes.

The first half of the workshop was for children to interact with a series of motivational toys that encouraged the exploration of line, color, and form that would be stimulate their art making.

Betty Blayton Taylor served as the Carnival's Executive Director, with the aid of Consulting and Advisory Boards composed of Harlem residents.

The committee, which met annually, sought to question and transform art education practices of the time (contests, copy books and paint-by-number kits, and teacher training).

The Committee on Art Education gathered a range of thinkers, artists and educators including Walter Gropius, Waldo Frank, Hale Woodruff, Viktor Lowenfeld, Belle Boas, Marcel Breuer, Herbert Read, Margaret Mead, Archibald Macleish, Meyer Schapiro, Robert Motherwell and Ben Shahn amongst others as keynote speakers.

The committee also organized meetings with artists like Buckminster Fuller, Joan Miró, Martha Graham, Edward Hopper, Georgia O’Keeffe, Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall, William Zorach, Jacques Lipchitz, José De Creeft and Henri Cartier-Bresson amongst others.

The War Veteran Art Center opened in the summer of 1944 on West Fifty-sixth Street, with additional studio spaces at 681 Fifth Avenue.

In 1952 and 1953, MoMA and WNBC-WNBT co-produced a television series called Through the Enchanted Gate created by Victor D’Amico and NBC vice president Ted Cott.

In 1972, the New York Board of Education's Learning Cooperative proposed the prototype of the two-car caravan, created by Victor D’Amico and his wife Mabel, to various school districts, but it was ultimately unable to receive adequate funding.

In 1955, D’Amico sought to find a permanent location for the art classes that were initially offered by the MoMA at Ashawagh Hall in Springs, New York.

Originally named Kearsarge, a Native American word meaning “place of heaven,” it was affectionately known as The Art Barge.

Adding to the integrity of The Barge, The Mabel & Victor D’Amico Studio & Archive located in the house that Victor and Mabel D'Amico built comprises an extensive collection of research materials that relate to their teaching and art practice: photos, films, articles, books, motivational materials and artwork.