Benny Bufano

"Bear and cubs" — at the University of California, San Francisco.
Sun Yat-sen statue, in San Francisco Chinatown.

Beniamino Benvenuto Bufano (October 15, 1890 – August 18, 1970) was a California-based Italian American sculptor, best known for his large-scale monuments, usually of granite. His modernist work often featured smoothly rounded animals and relatively simple shapes.

Biography

Bufano was born in San Fele, Italy. There is some question about his date of birth.[1] He moved with his parents and 11 siblings to New York City at age 3.[2] He studied at the Art Students League of New York during 1913–15 with the famous sculptors Herbert Adams, Paul Manship, and James Earle Fraser.

In 1915, Bufano entered a nationwide art competition and exhibit on the theme "The Immigrant in America". Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, founder of the Whitney Museum of American Art, funded the contest and offered $1,100 in prize money. The exhibit was held in the Whitney Studio Club at 8 West 8th Street in Greenwich Village, which Whitney established to exhibit the work of young artists. The Immigrants in America Review administered the contest. Frances Kellor, who had been top committeewoman in former President Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive Party, headed the Review.[3] Roosevelt visited the exhibit of the 100 works entered in the contest, which added to its prestige and the notoriety of its prize winners. Bufano, then a virtual unknown, won the first prize of $500 with a sculpture in tile, granite and steel entitled Peace.[4][5] Bufano's theme contrasted with most of the entries, which focused on the immigrants' struggle for survival in their new homeland. The New York Times reported on Roosevelt's visit to the exhibit. Roosevelt used the occasion to inveigh against cubist art, but singled out "Bennie" Bufano's prize-winning sculpture for praise. "Wonderful work", he exclaimed to the Times, "I should like to meet the sculptor."[6]

"Bene" Bufano, as his friends referred to him, though this soon morphed into the Americanized "Benny" in the hands of the press, first came to San Francisco to work on a sculpture for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, alongside Dirk van Erp. In San Francisco he joined Mrs. Whitney, who had several of her own sculptures in the Panama-Pacific International Exposition.[3] Afterwards, he traveled extensively before returning to settle permanently in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 1919 he met Sara Bard Field and Charles Erskine Scott Wood, who became important patrons of his work. They provided him with a studio, commissioned sculptures for their home at Los Gatos, and funded a trip to China for the artist to study glazes.[7]Albert M. Bender was another patron who helped Bufano in many ways.

Shortly after the United States entered World War I, Bufano accidentally cut off his right index finger. He decided to mail the "trigger finger" to President Woodrow Wilson as a protest against the war. He allowed a legend to develop that he had intentionally severed the finger for this purpose.[1]

In addition to his work as a sculptor, he taught at the San Francisco Institute of Art (but was dismissed in 1923 because he was considered too modern), the University of California, Berkeley, and Oakland's California College of Arts and Crafts.

Plaques above Bufano's grave in Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma, California.

Bufano is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma, California.

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Public Works

Some of his best-known works include, the first sculpture in Stainless steel,[8] a statue of Chinese leader Sun Yat-sen in San Francisco's Chinatown,a , his 93-foot (28 m) sculpture Peace or The Expanding Universe[9] in coastal Timber Cove near Jenner, California, not to be confused with the 30-foot Peace, which was after nearly four decades at San Francisco International Airport relocated near Lake Merced, or its variant Madonna at Fort Mason,[10] and Bear and Cubs at Kauikeaouli Hale in Honolulu, Hawaii. Other Bear and Cubs sculptures are outside the Oakland Museum of California and Kaiser Permanente in Fremont, CA. His Hand of Peace is expected to be installed in front of the Walnut Creek Library in Walnut Creek, CA.[11]

Examples of his distinctive and large-scale work are found throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, including Saint Francis of the Guns (1968), a statue of Saint Francis of Assisi—San Francisco's namesake—made from melted-down guns mixed with bronze to prevent rust from the city's dampness; this work was inspired by that year's assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. There is a Bufano Sculpture Garden at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.

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Notes

  1. ^ a b "Missiles of Peace: Benny Bufano's Message to the World," California History, March 22, 2007.
  2. ^ "Colonel's Big Stick Batters Cubist Art". New York Times. December 3, 1915. p. 11. 
  3. ^ a b Berman, Avis (1990). Rebels on Eighth Street: Juliana Force and the Whitney Museum of American Art. New York: Atheneum. p. 118. ISBN 978-0-689-12086-2. 
  4. ^ New York Times. November 13, 1915. 
  5. ^ "East Side Sculptor Wins Exhibit Prize". New York Times. November 15, 1915. 
  6. ^ "Colonel's Big Stick Batters Cubist Art". New York Times. December 3, 1915. p. 11. 
  7. ^ Sara Bard Field: Poet and Suffragist, Regional Oral History Office, Bancroft Library, University of California.
  8. ^ Discovery: Benny Bufano 1953 KPIX-TV and the San Francisco Museum of Art present a program in the 'Discovery' series about Bufano's work in San Francisco
  9. ^ Bufano’s Obelisk | Timber Cove Inn
  10. ^ (Madonna) - San Francisco, CA - Smithsonian Art Inventory Sculptures on Waymarking.com
  11. ^ Sculpture Destined For Civic Park Location? - Walnut Creek, CA Patch
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References

  • Bufano: Sculpture, Mosaics, Drawings. Tokyo: John Weatherhill, Inc. n.d. (c. 1968). Library of Congress Card No. 68-26953.  Published for the Bufano Society of the Arts, San Francisco; 115 color and 8 black-and-white illustrations.
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External links

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Last modified on 14 March 2013, at 22:52