Breathing Life Into Stone: The Sculpture of Henry Dispirito
May 10, 2013 - September 1, 2013.
by Jane Librizzi, Editor of The Blue Lantern
As with any accomplished artist, first we encounter the work and then are drawn by curiosity to know about the creator. In the case of Henry Dispirito (1898-1995), there is nothing in that trajectory that disappoints and much that inspires, as you can see in the photograph of Dispirito in his backyard garden studio, circa 1960.
Breathing Life Into Stone: The Sculpture of Henry Dispirito, the recent exhibition at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Art Institute in Utica, NY, was on view from May 10, 2013 to September 1, 2013.
Dispirito belongs to the best of the 20th century's sculptors who carved directly from stone, stone that Dispirito found in the brooks and riverbeds of upstate New York. Direct carving, or taille directe as it is sometimes called, is a more spontaneaous method of carving that relies on both visual and sense memory rather than the use of a mock-up. Like William Zorach, whose Affection graces the central foyer of Munson-Williams-Proctor, Disprito's work is representational while also stylized by his personal imprint, spiritual and full of rhythm. In 1951, in a review of a group show at the Museum of Modern Art, the New York Times in 1951 was the first to make that connection.
To his adopted home he gave many gifts through teaching, bringing art to people and places often overlooked by his contemporary artists. Dispirito was one of five children, the son of a stonemason in Castelforte, a village ouside Rome. Seeing the boys' talent, a local businessman offered Henry the tuition to pursue the study of painting, a course that was cut short by Henry's conscription into military service during World War I. Returning to Castelforte in 1920, the damage and the poverty caused by years of fighting, Dispirito decided to join an uncle and a cousin who had already emigrated to Utica in upstate New York. After thirteen days when his ship docked at New York in March, 1921, Henry boarded a train to Utica with a card attached to his suit, naming his destination. Although he spoke no English yet, Henry was heartened to recognize the Carrara marble columns he he saw when he disembarked at the Utica train depot.
Trained by his father as a stonemason, Dispirito found work where he could, in a cotton mill and then as a house painter where the paint fumes sickened him and he had to take refuge on a farm to recuperate. A pattern was set: Dispirito maintained a wall between the work he did to support his family and his art. In 1927 he married Rose Conte and they had three daughters, Dolores, Theresa, and Loretta. When his work began to be exhibited widely, he sent his daughters to represent him, preferring to stay close to home.
“Since the start of my career as an artist, my work has been done after working hours, on Sundays and Holidays. Time has literally been stolen in which to work, as I had to fulfill my obligations as husband and father.....It is my beleief that now is the peak of my creative period and I need full time to devote to sculpture.” In his ongoing search for time and space for his art Dispirito applied for grants, including the Guggenheim Fellowship where he included the above statement on his application. Sadly, his application was denied: he had passed the age limit by the time he applied.
In 1940 Dispirito work on a series of dioramas for the WPA, his first break from masonry. He studied art in the evenings at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Art Institute from 1941-43. The Institute purchased its first Dispirito, Leaping Frog , in 1948. When the architect Philip Johnson designed a new home for the Art Institute in 1960, a place was made in the outer structure for a Dispirito relief carving of a fox.
Only after he retired in 1963 would Dispirito find that precious time. Immediately he was appointed artist in residence at Utica College, a sinecure that usually lasts for one year but was extended until his death in 1995. Finally the sculptor had a dedicated studio for his work.
A generous artist who loaning his works for exhibitions and, more unusually, allowed individuals to purchase his work through incremental payments, making it possible for a wider audience to enjoy an artwork in their homes as part of their daily lives. Dispirito worked with the Rehabilitation Center fr the Blind in Topeka, Kansas to make sculpture available to the visually impaired. His works grace the upstate landscape, at the Children's Museum of Utica, a chapel to the Bl essed Mother at St. Stanislauw Church, the Volunteer Fireman at Deerfield, and several impressive outdoor works, including The Unfinished Tiger on the cmapus of Utica College.
Henry Dispirito's sculptures are now in the collections of such major museums as the Whitney Museum in NYC, the Addison Gallery of American Art, the High Museum of Atlanta, and the Williams College Museum of Art.
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