Piccirilli Studio (site of)

By Breanne Scanlon

The former Piccirilli studio housed a famed family of Italian immigrant stone carvers and sculptors.

While most New Yorkers are familiar with the artistic works of the Piccirilli Brothers, very few know their name or their story. Giuseppe Piccirilli and his six sons transported their sculpting and carving business from Italy to New York City in the late 19th century. Their works, which include the Maine Monument at Columbus Circle, the lions at the New York Public Library, the pediment of the New York Stock Exchange, and the Firemen’s Monument in Riverside Park, have become enduring symbols of New York City for residents and visitors alike.

In 1887, sculptor and stone-carver Giuseppe Piccirilli moved from his home in Tuscany, Italy to New York City. He brought with him his wife, daughter, and six sons. He and his sons–Attilio, Furio, Ferrucio, Getulio, Masaniello, and Orazio–who were also trained in sculpting and stone carving, determined to continue the family sculpting and carving business they had started in Italy. Giuseppe and his three oldest sons, Ferruccio, Attilio, and Furio, first worked as stone carvers at Adler’s Monument and Granite Works on East 57th Street in Manhattan. After working there for a year and a half, the Piccirillis saved enough money to open their own carving and sculpting studio in a rented stable on Sixth Avenue and 39th Street. In the early phases of American sculpture, relatively few sculptors possessed the training or ability to carve their compositions in marble or stone, and many sent their work abroad to be carved. The sculptor community in New York City was a relatively small one, and word of the Piccirillis’ reputation as accomplished stone carvers and sculptors quickly spread. They built their business through carving commissions, but were later able to devote more time to their own original sculpture work.

The Piccirilli’s arrival in the US coincided with the start of massive Italian immigration to this country. Many of their countrymen were subjected to vicious forms of prejudice and discrimination. As highly skilled artisans, the Piccirills escaped the worst of this. Their work was essential to the production of the era’s monumental buildings and sculptures.

In 1890, Barbara Piccirilli, Giuseppe’s wife, fell ill and doctors advised her to move to the country. The entire family moved to 142nd Street, near Willis Avenue, in the Bronx, which was still considered the country at that time. Giuseppe and his sons built two studios near their home. The studios were the largest artist studios in the U.S. when they were built. Each brother had his own working space, but they ate lunch together everyday, frequently entertaining visitors. Over the years, the Piccirillis hosted both groups of schoolchildren and many prominent figures in their studios, including Theodore Roosevelt and Fiorello LaGuardia, who was a close family friend. It was in these studios that Piccirillis did their most important and well-known work.

In 1898, the American battleship Maine blew up in the harbor of Havana, Cuba. Spontaneous combustion in one of the magazines probably caused the explosion, but at the time it was widely believed that the Spanish Navy had mined the ship, a belief which helped to precipitate the Spanish-American war. Shortly after the explosion, newspaper owner William Randolph Hearst led a public campaign to raise funds for a monument tribute to the 258 American sailors who died in the explosion. During the national design competition, architect H. Van Buren Magonigle and Attilio Piccirilli were chosen to design and sculpt the Maine monument, which stands at the southwest entrance to Central Park near Columbus Circle. Attillio and Magonigle completed the Maine monument in 1913, and this work established Attillio as a premier sculptor and carver. Attillio and Magonigle continued their partnership when they designed and sculpted the Firemen’s Memorial in Riverside Park at West 100th Street, which was also unveiled in 1913.

Shortly after the Piccirilli Brothers’ Studio opened, a fellow carver sent them a commission from sculptor Daniel Chester French, which he was unable to complete. French was so impressed with the Piccirillis’ work that he enlisted them to begin carving all of his designs. In 1908, the Brooklyn Museum commissioned French to supervise the execution of thirty statues to decorate the façade, and he asked Attillio to design and sculpt the Indian Lawgiver and Indian Literature statues. The Piccirillis also carved the other twenty-nine statue designs. (Additionally, they carved French’s Brooklyn and Manhattan sculptures, which originally stood at the Manhattan entrance to the Manhattan bridge, but now flank the Brooklyn Museum.) In 1914, the Piccirillis began work on one of French’s most important and well-known designs: the statue of Abraham Lincoln that sits in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. Chester gave the brothers a five-foot model statue to work from, out of which, four years later, they created the 19 foot high, 175 ton statue that stands at the memorial today.

The Piccirilli brothers carried on the family carving business and continued to create original works of their own. Along with the sculptor Onorio Ruotolo, Attillio co-founded the Leonardo da Vinci Art School (dubbed the “Leonardo”), devoted to providing free art instruction to New York’s working people. The school opened in 1923 on Tenth Street near Avenue A in a church building associated with St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery, located right off Tompkins Square. The abstract sculptor Isamu Noguchi attended evening sculpture classes there in 1924. Before the Leonardo da Vinci Art School closed in 1942 (having moved several times in the intervening years), it received commendations from a wide range of American citizens, including Thomas Edison, Calvin Coolidge, Theodore Dreiser, Arturo Toscanini, Al Smith, and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

In 1926, the National Academy of Design awarded Attillio and Horatio prizes for sculpture. In addition to the works previously mentioned, the Piccirillis were responsible for carving countless others, including the lion statues at the entrance to the main branch of the New York Public Library at 42nd Street, portions of the Washington Square Arch in Greenwich Village, twelve allegorical statues on the cornice of the U.S. Custom House at Bowling Green, and the New York Stock Exchange pediment. Attillio also designed the glass sculptures The Joy of Life and Youth Leading Industry at Rockefeller Center near Fifth Avenue.

Attillio, Ferrucio, and Getulio Piccirilli died in 1945, and the Piccirilli studio closed the following year. A Jehovah’s Witness Hall now occupies the site of the former studio. Recently, Bronx residents Bill Carroll and Mary Shelley successfully petitioned to have the block on 142nd Street where the Piccirilli Studio once stood renamed Piccirilli Place in honor of the Piccirilli brothers and their many achievements. Additionally, Carroll and Shelley worked with former City Councilman Jose Serrano, Jr. to fund a permanent photo exhibition of the Piccirillis’ work at the Mott Haven Library in the Bronx, sharing the legacy of the family’s achievements with the current residents of their home borough.