Beniamino Bufano presents bride
Angela
Alioto and husband Adolpho Veronese with a carving of the Madonna on
their wedding at the De Young Museum in San Francisco on December 8, 1968,
as the bride's parents, Mayor Joe Alioto and Angelina Genaro Alioto stand
by. The colorful artist showed up at the wedding in the company of a "working
girl," which infuriated the mother of the bride. The move was vintage Bufano.
(Photo: Alioto Collection) |
Sculpting giant
Beniamino Benvenuto Bufano, who was only five feet tall, was born in
1898 in San-Fele, Italy. Bufano spent his childhood in New York, where he
was privately educated before attending the Arts Student League as a pupil
of James L. Fraser, Herbert Adams, and Paul Manship. Bufano came to San
Francisco in 1915 before traveling for four years in Europe, India and China.
After his tour, the free spirited Bufano returned to the City and remained
a San Franciscan for the rest of his life. He was fired as an instructor
at the San Francisco Institute of Art in 1923 for being a radical. Bufano
severed his finger and sent it to President Wilson to protest World War
I. Henry Miller wrote, "[Bufano] will outlive our civilization and probably
be better known, better understood, both as a man and artist, five thousand
years hence." Bufano died in San Francisco on August 16, 1970. His work
is characterized by its use of smoothly rounded granite and steel and by
its monumental iconography. St. Francis is a frequent subject of Bufano's
art.
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