FREEING THE ANGEL FROM THE STONE 

 

      Part Two:  Biography

          The arrival of the English steamship Roman, out of London, in early June of 1888, at Boston harbor signaled the start of a new epoch in American sculpture.

     Arriving aboard the Roman were Guiseppe and Barbara Piccirilli with four of their seven children. The parents and their teenage sons Orazio, Getulio, Masaniello and a baby daughter, Iole had been preceded to this country by the older sons Ferruccio, Attilio and Furio who had come to New York from London a few months earlier.

   The Piccirilli family  came from Italy. The father and his six sons were sculptors who were expert modelers and carvers. (Clarification may be necessary in respect to the terms modeler and carver. A sculptor makes a model of his statue, usually out of clay, but does NOT necessarily carve his statue. The hard work of carving is usually left to someone else.) The Piccirilli brothers, who operated a sculpture studio in the Bronx, did modeling, carving and much more. Their arrival in 1888 put into place a first class sculpting system that America mostly lacked and the foremost American sculptors quickly availed themselves of the system.

       The parents of the Piccirilli brothers were Giuseppe Piccirilli, a talented marble carver and pointer, and wife Barbara Giorgi Piccirilli. Giuseppe, who was born in Rome, moved to his wife’s village, Massa, in Tuscany, near the famous marble quarries of Carrara after their marriage. They had a daughter Iole (1885-1973) and six sons: Attilio (1866-1945), Ferruccio (?-1945), Furio (1868-1949), Orazio (1872-1954), Masaniello (1878-1949), and Getulio (1875-1945). All were in the United States by 1888. All the sons were gifted sculptors and while sculptors in their own right, worked together on much of the architectural and sculptural decorations on many prominent New York City buildings.

    The Piccirilli family came to New York from Massa-Carrera, Italy in 1888 for reasons that are unclear, bankruptcy and opportunity are mentioned; and established their own sculpture studio in Manhattan. In 1890 Mrs. Piccirilli was taken ill and advised by her doctor to move to the more bucolic Bronx for its fresher air and greener surroundings. The Bronx in the 1890’s was still mostly countryside with farms scattered throughout. Mott Haven is the section into which  the Piccirilli family moved.                   

     The closeness to Manhattan and access to the railroad and water transport as well as recent improvements in public transportation may have also have been considered in the choice of the Bronx for their relocation.

     It was a time of huge migration from Europe to America and a time of great change. It was also a time of strong anti-immigrant sentiments with virulent attacks on the incoming Italians and Jews. Many Italians were victimized at that time. The Piccirillis were not immune to these attacks.

    Giuseppe Piccirilli headed the Piccirilli marble carving studio until his death in 1910 when Attilio assumed its direction. The studio, at 467 East 142^nd Street was the largest in this country and was host to thousands of visitors including Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Taft and Wilson. Working space at the studio was freely given to other sculptors. Augustus Saint Gaudens and Daniel Chester French were the most famous American sculptors to have worked there. Until he met the Piccirilli brothers shortly after their arrival in America, Daniel Chester French, who was primarily a modeler and not a carver, was one of many who sent his work to Italy to be carved. Michael Richman writes in his book, Daniel Chester French: An American Sculptor that, “During the remainder of his career French would work compatibly with these carvers, and they would execute all but two of his marble commissions.”   

PICTURE OF LINCOLN  MEMORIAL STATUE    

 In their Bronx studio the Piccirillis carved the statue of Abraham Lincoln that is in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. The one hundred and seventy-five ton statue was made of twenty-eight interlocking pieces and assembled at the site by the brothers. Daniel Chester French is the sculptor of note. Similarly constructed in the studio was Attilio's Maine Memorial at Central Park West and Columbus Circle. In front of the main branch of the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue and Forty-second Street the lions, the work of Edward Clark Potter, were carved by the Piccirilli brothers

     After the Second World War figurative sculpture faced death by abstraction. The Piccirilli studio fell into decline. The times had passed them by and the new had little use for the old. The Piccirilli business dissolved in 1946.  Attilio Piccirilli died October 8, 1945. His brother Getulio had died two days before on October 6, 1945. Seven days after Getulio's death, on October 15, 1945, Ferruccio Piccirilli died in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. where he had been living with his son Bruno. Furio and Masaniello both died in 1949 and Orazio in 1954.

  PICTURE: LINCOLN MEM.  

     In their Bronx studio the Piccirillis carved the statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial . They  completed the carving of the statue of Abraham Lincoln in 1919.The one hundred and seventy-five-ton statue was made of twenty-eight interlocking pieces and assembled at the Washington site by the brothers. Daniel Chester French is the sculptor of record.

     After the Second World War the Piccirilli studio fell into decline. The times had passed them by and the new had little use for the old.     PICTURE: MOTHER AND CHILD

  

    

Working on Riverside Front Portal

      There are many works in Manhattan by the Piccirillis but we will visit a handful; and begin at Mr. Rockefeller’s Riverside Church. Riverside Church, an interdenominational church, was built by John D. Rockefeller Jr. so that as many followers as possible could hear Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick, his favorite preacher speak. Dr. Fosdick was famous for his sermons against the beliefs of the Baptist fundamentalists and in favor of a non-sectarian Christianity. He welcomed a church where Christians of any race, color, creed or denomination were welcome. Riverside Church is a Piccirilli Paradise with numerous carvings in marble and wood. The Piccirilli brothers carved the great portal, or front door, with its host of statues, reliefs, gargoyles and details.

 

 

       

                                                                                                                                 

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