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Oronzio Maldarelli

Oronzio Maldarelli
BornSeptember 9, 1892
Naples, Italy
DiedJanuary 4, 1963
New York City, U.S.
Other namesOronzie Maldarelli
EducationNational Academy of Design, Beaux-Arts Institute of Design
Occupation(s)Sculptor, painter, educator
SpouseMatilda Schreiber (m. 1925–)

Oronzio Maldarelli (1892 – 1963) was an Italian-born American sculptor, painter, and educator. He taught at Sarah Lawrence College and Columbia University. Like many other sculptors of his day, Maldarelli produced both architectural and funerary sculpture.

Education

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Oronzio Maldarelli was born on September 9, 1892, in Naples, Italy.[1] He immigrated in 1901 to the United States with his parents, Michael Maldarelli, a goldsmith, and mother, Louisa Rizzo Maldarelli. In 1925, he married Matilda Schreiber in Yonkers, New York.[2]

His early career was studying jewelry design.[3] About 1906, he began taking modeling lessons at the Cooper Union. He later study at the National Academy of Design, with Leon Kroll, Ivan Olinsky, and Hermon Atkins MacNeil.[1] In 1912, he entered the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design, where he studied under Jo Davidson, Elie Nadelman, and John Gregory.[1]

Career

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Maldarelli's classical training allowed him to obtain commissions for both garden decorations and architectural sculpture. However as he grew older his work became more and more abstracted, though it would remain basically figurative. In 1929, he had a solo exhibition of his pastel works at Grand Central Art Galleries in New York City.[3]

He taught at both Sarah Lawrence College and Columbia University. One known student, Mario Cooper, would go on to considerable fame as an illustrator and also would teach at Columbia.[4]

While working at Columbia University in early 1950, Maldarelli met and taught a young Canadian police officer named John Reginald Abbott, a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Abbott had received authorization and funding to study sculpture in New York City in order to develop a new system of criminal identification for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police that relied on sculpted composites of suspected criminals.[5]

He was a member of the National Sculpture Society, the Architectural League of New York, and the National Academy of Design.[3][6] He was awarded the Widener Gold Medal from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

Maldarelli died at the age of 70 on January 4, 1963, in New York City from a heart attack.[7][8]

Collections

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Bianca No. 2, 1951, by Oronzio Maldarelli, displayed at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia.

References

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  1. ^ a b c "Oronzio Maldarelli". Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. Archived from the original on June 7, 2011.
  2. ^ "Marriage of Maldarelli and Schreiber". The Herald Statesman. March 31, 1925. p. 13. Retrieved 2025-02-27 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. ^ a b c "Oronzie Maldarelli Holds Exhibition of Pastels at Grand Central Galleries". Brooklyn Eagle. June 9, 1929. p. 65. Retrieved 2025-02-27 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. ^ Watson, Ernest (1946). Forty Illustrators and How They Work. Watson Guptill Publishers.
  5. ^ Jelinski, Jamie (2023-09-16). "'This sculptor is a cop': John Reginald Abbott, murder in Montreal and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's criminal identification masks". Sculpture Journal. 32 (3): 355–382. doi:10.3828/sj.2023.32.3.05. ISSN 1366-2724.
  6. ^ Board of Governors. "National Academicians". The National Academy. Archived from the original on 2016-03-14. Retrieved 2014-01-25.
  7. ^ "Obituary for Oronzio Maldarelli". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. January 6, 1963. p. 18. Retrieved 2025-02-27 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ^ "Obituary for Oronzio Maldarelli". The Brattleboro Reformer. January 18, 1963. p. 5. Retrieved 2025-02-27 – via Newspapers.com.
  • Contemporary American Sculpture, The California Palace of the Legion of Honor, Lincoln Park, San Francisco, The National Sculpture Society 1929
  • Opitz, Glenn B, Editor, Mantle Fielding’s Dictionary of American Painters, Sculptors & Engravers, Apollo Book, Poughkeepsie NY, 1986
  • Proske, Beatrice Gilman, Brookgreen Gardens Sculpture, Brookgreen Gardens, South Carolina, 1968
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