Oronzio Maldarelli facts for kids
Oronzio Maldarelli was an American artist who created sculptures and paintings. He was born in Naples, Italy, in 1892 and lived until 1963.
Learning to Be an Artist
Oronzio Maldarelli was born on September 9, 1892. When he was about nine years old, in 1901, he moved to the United States with his parents. His father, Michael Maldarelli, was a goldsmith.
Around 1906, Oronzio started learning how to sculpt at a school called the Cooper Union. After two years, he went on to study at the National Academy of Design. There, he learned from famous artists like Leon Kroll and Hermon Atkins MacNeil.
In 1912, he joined another art school, the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design. At this school, he studied with well-known sculptors such as Jo Davidson and Elie Nadelman.
His Art Career
Because Oronzio Maldarelli had such good training in classical art, he was asked to create many sculptures. He made art for gardens and also sculptures that were part of buildings.
As he got older, his artwork started to look more "abstracted." This means his art still showed real things, but they were simplified or changed in a way that wasn't exactly realistic.
Maldarelli also taught art at Sarah Lawrence College and Columbia University. One of his students, Mario Cooper, became a very famous illustrator and also taught at Columbia. Oronzio Maldarelli passed away in New York City in 1963 when he was 70 years old.
Like many sculptors of his time, Maldarelli created art for buildings and also for graves or memorials. He was a member of important art groups like the National Sculpture Society and the National Academy of Design. He even won a special award called the Widener Gold Medal from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
Where to See His Art
Many museums and galleries proudly display Oronzio Maldarelli's sculptures and paintings. You can find his work in these places:
- St Louis Art Museum, St Louis, Missouri
- Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.
- Smithsonian Institution Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.
- Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City
- Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
- Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
- Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey
- St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York City
