- Corrado Parducci
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Corrado Giuseppe Parducci (March 10, 1900 - November 22, 1981) was an Italian-American architectural sculptor who was a celebrated artist for his numerous early 20th Century works.
Contents
Early life and education
Parducci was born in Buti, Italy, a small village near Pisa, and immigrated to New York City in the United States in 1904. At a young age, he was sponsored by heiress/sculptor Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney and sent to art school. He attended the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design and Art Students League. His teachers included anatomist George Bridgman and sculptor Albin Polasek.[1]
Training and Career
Parducci was apprenticed to architectural sculptor Ulysses Ricci in 1917. While working for Ricci, and later while in the Anthony DiLorenzo studio, his work came to the attention of Detroit architect Albert Kahn.
In 1924 Parducci travled to Detroit to work for Kahn, only planning to stay for a few months. However, with the automotive industry booming in the 1920s, Parducci moved his family to Michigan and ended up spending the rest of his career working from Detroit. One of Parducci's known Detroit studios was located at Cass Ave. and Sibley St., but it has been demolished. Parducci's studio had tall windows which illuminated his work. Parducci’s work can be found on many of the Detroit area’s finest buildings including from churches, schools, banks, hospitals and residences.[1][2]
His sculptures can be found in most major Michigan cities including Ann Arbor, Dearborn, Flint, Grand Rapids, Jackson, Kalamazoo, Marquette, Royal Oak, Saginaw, and Ypsilanti. By the end of his long and productive career, Parducci’s efforts adorned about 600 buildings.
The last commission Parducci completed was a portrait of architect Henry Hobson Richardson in a Romanesque setting that was carved on a lintel in the Senate chamber of the New York State Capitol in Albany, New York in 1980.
Although Parducci worked in a variety of styles, notably Romanesque, Classical, Renaissance and even Aztec/Mayan/Pueblo Deco, it was his pioneering of the Greco Deco style for which he is best remembered.
Parducci’s Detroit Masonic Temple Lobby
Anthony Di Lorenzo, New York ornamentalist, held two contracts for interior decoration in the Detroit Masonic Temple - #1 (Corrado Parducci) $13,160.00 and #2 for $9,680.00. Thomas Di Lorenzo’s contract for interior decoration amounted to $59,074.00. Joe (Corrado) Parducci worked in the New York firm of Ricci, DiLorenzo and Aldolino as a very young man. When the firm broke up, he stayed with DiLorenzo who was an ornamentalist and Joe was the sculptor. Joe met Albert Kahn in New York City who urged him to come to Detroit and work on two bank buildings on Griswold Street . Joe came to Detroit to work for only a couple of months. Anthony DiLorenzo had some work here and Kahn wanted Parducci. He worked indirectly for Kahn through DiLorenzo. Other work came from Detroit architects Donaldson & Meier, Smith, Hinchman & Grylls, and George D. Mason.[1]
The first 8 months, 1924 to middle of 1925, Joe worked under DiLorenzo. The Masonic Temple contracts were DiLorenzos’ jobs until Parducci bought them out for $5,000.00.
William F. Gurche had the contract for the exterior sculpture. Henry Steinman, a New York sculptor working in the Detroit studio of William F. Gurche, sculpted the Tylers on the four towers of the Ritual Building . Leo William Friedlander, a New York sculptor and 1913 winner of the Prix de Rome, was paid $1,100.00 to sculpt the three figures – King Solomon, King Hiram and Hiram Abiff – over the Ritual Tower entrance.
All the light fixtures were custom-made by the Sterling Bronze Company of New York . The lighting fixtures in the lodges, hallways, and foyers were designed for the tasks at hand.
Corrado Giuseppe Parducci's lobby design was reportedly adapted from an old castle in Palermo, Sicily . Parducci did model the 5’ bronze floor plaque depicting Strength, Truth and Beauty. He sculpted the two plaques in the stone walls of the interior stairs of the Scottish Rite entrance. These two are repeated in the lobby as plaster plaques.
List of Buildings Containing Parducci's Art
- Guardian Building
- Buhl Building
- Penobscot Building
- Fisher Building
- Stewart-Warner Speedometer Corporation Building
- Kresge Building
- Maccabees Building
- The Players
- Springwells Water Treatment Plant
- Detroit Federal Building
- Detroit Zoo Rackham Memorial Fountain
- Webster Hall, Wayne State University , (Demolished in 1991)
- David Stott Building
- Trinity Lutheran Church
- Detroit Masonic Temple
- Wilson Theater, now Music Hall
- Hudson Motor Car Factory (Demolished)
- Detroit Historical Museum
- Lee Plaza
- Meadow Brook Hall
- Edsel and Eleanor Ford House
- Charles T. Fisher Residence
- Alfred J. Fisher Residence
- William A. Fisher Residence
- Frank Couzens Residence
- St. Aloysius Church
- Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament
- Shrine of the Little Flower
- St. Thomas the Apostle's
- St. John’s Seminary, now The Inn At St. Johns
- University of Detroit Mercy
- Standard Club of Chicago
- Second National Bank of Saginaw
- Rackham Building in Ann Arbor
- Standard Savings and Loan in Ann Arbor
- Louisiana State Capitol
See also
Notes
- ^ a b c Barrie, Dennis (March 17, 1975).Corrado Parducci interview. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved on July 24, 2009.
- ^ Foot, Andrew (June 29, 2006).International Metropolis. Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrement. Diehl & Diehl Archives, photo inside Corrado Parducci's studio. Retrieved on July 24, 2009.
References and further reading
- Kvaran, Einar Einarsson, Shadowing Parducci, unpublished manuscript
- Godzak, Roman (2004). Catholic Churches in Detroit (Images of America). Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 0-7385-3235-5.
- Savage, Rebecca Binno and Greg Kowalski (2004). Art Deco in Detroit (Images of America). Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 0-7385-3228-2.
- Sobocinski, Melanie Grunow (2005). Detroit and Rome: building on the past. Regents of the University of Michigan. ISBN 0933691092.
- Tottis, James W. (2008). The Guardian Building: Cathedral of Finance. Wayne State University Press. ISBN 9780814333853.
External links
- http://artarchives.si.edu/oralhist/parduc75.htm
- http://www.wiu.edu/art/public_art/html/firstbank.html
- http://www.dwsd.org/history/Parducci_bio.html
- http://www.bonisteelml.org/dml_gallery.htm
- Bonisteel Masonic Library Ann Arbor/Detroit Michigan
- email: kgrube@bonisteelml.org Karl Grube W. Grube, Ph.D., President
- Corrado Parducci on Arborwiki
Categories:- 1900 births
- 1981 deaths
- American architectural sculptors
- American people of Italian descent
- People from Detroit, Michigan
- American sculptors
- Detroit task force articles
- Artists from Michigan
- People from the Province of Pisa
- Italian emigrants to the United States
- Art Students League of New York alumni
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