Oronzio Maldarelli (1892 - 1963)

15. Merry Xmas, c. 1930s

Metal (likely aluminum) repousse plaque, 5 x 5 inches, inscribed “Merry Xmas to the Rowans Maldarelli”

$750

About the Artist

Born in 1892 in Naples, Italy, Oronzio Maldarelli immigrated to New York as a child. From the age of 14, he attended drawing and clay modeling lessons at the Cooper Union and a few years later at the National Academy of Design. He also studied with Elie Nadelman and Jo Davidson at the Beaux Arts Institute of Design. Starting in the 1920s, he exhibited extensively at major institutions, including the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where he was a medalist, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. He had solo exhibitions at New York’s Midtown Gallery, Grand Central Art Gallery, and Paul Rosenberg Gallery. He was a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, where he served as Vice President. Many of Maldarelli’s sculptural works focused on female forms, initially in a classical realist vein, but his later works became more abstract. During the WPA Era, Maldarelli was awarded a commission by the Treasury Department’s Section of Painting and Sculpture for the US Postal Service headquarters in Washington, D.C. Maldarelli is listed in Who Was Who in American Art and all other standard references.