Nationality USA / Italy Occupation ArtistSculptor | Name Vincenzo Miserendino | |
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Spouse(s) Julia Beninati (1904–1943) Died December 26, 1943, The Bronx, New York City, New York, United States | ||
Vincenzo "Vincent" Miserendino (1875–1943) was an artist and sculptor born in Sicily, and active in New York in the early part of the 20th century. He studied art first in Palermo at the age of 13 and then in Rome at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma (Academy of Fine Arts at Rome). He immigrated to the United States in 1894 at the age of nineteen, and settled on the lower east side of Manhattan, working in many odd jobs while trying to establish himself as an artist.
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Currently his sculptures can be found throughout the United States and many are catalogued in the Smithsonian Institution's Research Information Service.
Prominent works
Miserendino became noted for his statues of Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt.
In 1922 Miserendino created a larger-than-life terracotta sculpture of Roosevelt sitting on a rock in safari hunting attire, with a giant lion head beside his feet. In addition to Roosevelt as Hunter, he also made two other Roosevelt portraits (Oklahoma City, OK, 1907) and (A. B. Davis Middle School, Mount Vernon, New York, 1923).
Other prominent sculptures of Theodore Roosevelt are located in the Roosevelt Garden Apartments located at the Grand Concourse between 171st and 172nd Streets in Manhattan, in Roosevelt High School in Yonkers, New York and a Manhattan elementary school.
A sculpture of Franklin Delano Roosevelt was done in 1934, along with a sculpture of Franklin Roosevelt's mother Sara Delano Roosevelt. Both sculptures are now in the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park, New York.
Miserendino did several statues of Christopher Columbus, one of which is an 8 1/2' bronze statue of Christopher Columbus mounted on a 10 1/2' foot marble pedestal in City Park, Reading, Pennsylvania. It was commissioned by the United Italian Societies of Reading and Berks County for the 500th anniversary of the Columbus voyage to the new world, and unveiled and dedicated on October 12, 1925. The statue was rededicated in 1992. Another statue of Columbus is on the lawn of the Connecticut State Capitol.
In 1930, he sculpted a public monument of Thomas Mott Osborne, a prison reform leader, from bronze and granite for the department of parks and recreation in Auburn, NY.
Adolph Ochs, the founder of the modern The New York Times, commissioned a bust of himself from Miserendino, which was completed in bronze and marble in 1933 in Long Island City, NY, and today is placed in the lobby of the modern New York Times Building on 40th Street and 8th Avenue in New York. The other bust of Ochs bust in bronze and wood and is in Oglethorpe, GA.
Other works include a busts of Admiral Richard E. Byrd, Enrico Caruso, Thomas Paine, and former Secretary of the Treasury (under Theodore Roosevelt) Leslie M. Shaw, Emerson, Daniel Frohman, Willy Pogany, J. L. Holftrup, Edward F. Albee, and Betalo Rubino among numerous others.
Miseredino was also able to sell watercolors, paintings and murals, such as the "The Spring Dance" to the Palais Royal on Broadway, an early motion picture house in New York, for their lobby, as chronicled on April 17, 1917 in American Art News.
Miserendino's last and largest statue of Theodore Roosevelt, which was eight times life-size was commissioned in 1941, and scheduled to be placed in Boone, Iowa in 1943. However, at the time of casting, it had its 4,000 pounds of bronze appropriated for the World War II war effort. Miserendino commented at the time that Theodore Roosevelt himself would have approved of that decision to put the service of the country first.
The monument was finally cast in 1946 (after Miserendino's death) by the Roman Bronze Corporation of Corona, N.Y. It arrived in Boone in November 1946 and put into place on January 6, 1948. The statue depicts Roosevelt rising out of a mountainous landscape with his hand outstretched as if addressing a crowd. Ten bas reliefs of Roosevelt's outdoor accomplishments are depicted below his figure.
Prominent shows
Miserendino showed his work several times at the New York Academy of Design and the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts.
In the 1920s, Miserendino had a show at the Tiffany Studios of watercolors and sculptures, which had been organized by Louis C. Tiffany.
Personal life
Miserendino was married to Julia Beninati from 1904 until 1943 (his death). He had six children, Joseph, Vivian, Eleanor, Isabel, Cecelia & Theodore (named after Roosevelt). He spent the majority of his married life in the Pelham Bay section of the Bronx, and commuted to his studio on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
Miserendino was well enough known in his own day to be mentioned in the book Peregrina: Love and Death in Mexico by Alma M. Reed.
Miserendino himself published a book, "Art in Its Making and the Law of Success" in1923.
He died of a heart attack in 1943 and is buried in the Saint Raymond's Cemetery.
List of significant works
PUBLIC MONUMENTS
PORTRAIT BUSTS, HEADS AND SMALL STATUES OF PROMINENT INDIVIDUALS
Political Figures And Government Officials (Men)
Other Prominent Public Figures (Men)
Other Prominent Public Figures in the Arts and Literature (Men)
Prominent Women