Alfonso Iannelli (1888-1965)
By Alice Ireland
A nationally acclaimed sculptor, designer, painter, and
teacher, Alfonso Iannelli's lifelong search for the significance of form
resulted in the development of his signature streamlined style and
facilitated his recognition as one of America's first abstract modernists.
During a career that spanned five decades, he worked with some of the most
notable architects of his time including Barry Byrne, Purcell & Elmslie,
Holabird & Root, Bruce Goff, and Frank Lloyd Wright. His sensitivity to the
primary importance of the integration of arts with architecture resulted in
many successful collaborative undertakings involving structures throughout
the Midwest. As the founder of Iannelli Studios, one of the most successful
commercial studios in the Chicago area, he is also remembered as an
extremely prolific and innovative industrial designer. Today his work is
held by world- class museums including the Metropolitan, MOMA, and the Art
Institute of Chicago in the U.S, The Musee' de Orsay in Paris, and the V&A
in London.
The son of a poor Italian shoemaker, Iannelli immigrated to the northeastern
United States with his family in 1898 and attended public school. His formal
education was seemingly jeopardized when he was forced to leave his studies
in order to assist the family as a jeweler's apprentice when his father's
business faltered. Ultimately, his fortune improved. When the Art Student
League in New York recognized his considerable talent and granted him a
scholarship, his family permitted his return to school. In New York he had
the opportunity to study under a number of gifted artists including
draftsman, George Bridgeman and sculptor, Gutzon Borglum. It was under the
tutelage of Borglum, famous for his creation of the monumental presidential
memorial at Mt Rushmore, that Iannelli was exposed to an artistic philosophy
that rejected historicist styles in favor of a unique American expression.
This idea was embraced by Iannelli and would become a guiding force
throughout his career.
Captivated by the American West, Alfonso Iannelli moved west to Los Angeles
and very shortly thereafter was awarded a commission that would lead to his
'discovery' and shape his future. The Los Angeles Orpheum Vaudeville
Theater, venue for a variety of campy performances including trick
whistlers, dog shows, and comedians, hired Alfonso to create four lobby show
cards. His unique graphic style and the bold, flat color employed in the
execution of this work were groundbreaking at the time and he was eventually
hired to produce hundreds of these stunning posters between 1910 and 1915.
This early work by Iannelli attracted the attention of Mr. John Lloyd
Wright, son of legendary architect Mr. Frank Lloyd Wright, who was then
living in Los Angeles. As a result of Eric Wright's introduction and
influence, Alfonso Iannelli was invited to work on the elder Wright's first
public building - Midway Gardens in Chicago, IL. Thus began a promising
relationship that would ultimately end in disappointment and bitterness.
Iannelli accepted the offer from Wright and moved to Chicago in 1914 to work
on this large scale project. Midway Gardens was to be a concert garden
modeled after a Germanic form that incorporated both indoor and outdoor
space in which revelers could enjoy music, art, and nightlife. Alfonso's
commission included multiple sculptures, the most well known, of which were
his Sprites.
These works were modeled in a shed on the job site and the creative process
involved close consultation between the architect and the sculptor. It has
been generally accepted that the younger Iannelli was highly influenced by
Wright's cohesive, organic, architectural design vision. However, Iannelli's
earlier work revealed a design sensibility that was already likely
compatible with his employer's conception for the project. Perhaps this
initial harmony actually contributed to the blurring of discrete creative
identity, contributing to their eventual disagreement. Whatever the case,
their relationship began to sour on the building site and escalated into a
war of words when an architectural publication credited Wright with the
Sprite design. In a series of angry letters the two men debated the issue.
In one communiqué dated June 18, 1915 from Wright to Iannelli, Wright stated
his claim to the sculptural design and Iannelli subsequently annotated the
letter with his own remarks. He labeled Wright's assertions as "false",
"pretentious", and "sarcastic". In a letter responding to Wright's
assertions, Iannelli claimed design rights for the Midway Gardens figural
groups stating,
I designed these
groups in pencil and showed them to you and you approved of them, and they
were carried throughout hardly without a change. In these groups there has
entered an idea never before accomplished to my knowledge, that is the usage
of the architectural form through the human figure, which goes far in making
them the result they are - such as they are - and which to me offers the
only solution to the problem of the adaptabilities of sculpture to
architecture where one is the outgrowth of the other. As you know, I did
this…
The feud remained unsettled for many years and their professional
relationship seemed beyond repair when Iannelli refused offers of future
work from Wright including a commission for the Imperial hotel - a decision
that he later indicated that he regretted.
The rift between the two men did not deter Iannelli from making Illinois his
permanent home. He established a design studio in Park Ridge that served as
the base from which he accomplished his innovative and influential work. In
the decades that followed he was involved in a wide variety of successful
undertakings.
For example, between the years of 1923 and 1928 he and architect Barry Byrne
designed a series of churches and school buildings throughout the Midwest.
In 1925 his studio teamed with the architectural firm of Zook & McCaughey on
perhaps one of the greatest examples of his concept of total design - the
Pickwick Theater.
Built in his own village of Park Ridge, the Pickwick was a large scale
project requiring massive support from his studio to execute a multitude of
decorative elements including a fountain, murals on the interior fire
curtain and ceiling, organ and ventilating grills and plaster ornamentation
throughout the building. The theater still stands today as if in tribute to
the designer's commitment to the unity of design and to the creation of
indigenous American art.
Iannelli also taught, designed and exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago
and his work was so revered that he was honored with a solo exhibition there
in1925. He served briefly as the department head in the Art Institute's
school of decorative design. Also an instructor at Hull House, he was no
doubt disappointed when his efforts to establish a school of industrial
design there, and later at the Art Institute, failed to garner the necessary
support.
His personal success, however, continued to flourish. Iannelli Studios was
nationally recognized as the most successful commercial studio in Chicago
when the World's Fair (Century of Progress) came to this city in 1933-34 and
his firm received some of the most prestigious commissions for this event.
In the 1940's he dedicated himself to the development of industrial design
and was retained by companies such as Sunbeam, Oster, and Goodyear.
Iannelli's signature style shaped the look of the American household as he
refreshed the appearance of utilitarian objects such as refrigerators,
shavers, and mixers.
In his last and largest sculptural commission, the aging artist created a
relief of the Rock of Gibraltar on the face of the Prudential Tower, then
Chicago's tallest skyscraper.
Alfonso Iannelli's search for the significance of form was the motivating
force behind his life's work and the genius behind his innovative style. We
are surrounded by his legacy which survives in tangible form in the
buildings around us and in the collections of his work, and less tangibly
through the generation of artists that he influenced.
Article by: Alice Ireland
Bibliography
Byrne, Barry. Letter. Architectural Record. 1(1961).
Farr, Finis. Frank Lloyd Wright: A Biography. New York: Scribners, 1961
Green, Grace. "Alfonso Iannelli". Hyde Park Historical Society. 26:2 (
2004).
Griggs, George. Prairie School Review 2:4 (1965).
Jameson, David. The Form of Function - Art of the Machine. Exhibition
Archive 2001. http://www.architech.gallery.com
Samuleson, Tim. Conflict & Creativity: Architecture & Sculpture in Chicago
1871-1936
Chicago: Arts Club of Chicago, 1994.
Further information from Mr. David Jameson, an expert on Alfonso Iannelli:
Eric Lloyd Wright is Frank Lloyd Wright's grandson and the son of Lloyd
Wright (Frank Lloyd Wright Jr.), the first son of Frank. Eric didn't
discover Iannelli's posters at the Orpheum. He wasn't born then. Lloyd and
his brother John Lloyd Wright were living in Los Angeles together with Barry
Byrne. So it would have been Lloyd and John who got to know Iannelli at that
time.
Also, there were around 100 posters produced for the Orpheum by Iannelli,
not hundreds.
Later, John, living in Chicago and working for his father on Midway Gardens
was the one who sent Iannelli a telegram in February, 1914 asking him, on
behalf of his father, to come to Chicago to work on the project.
Though Byrne and Iannelli collaborated on projects from 1914 on, their first
collaboration on a church was on St. Thomas the Apostle in 1922.
And my job files from the Iannelli Studios indicate that it was early 1928
that they were brought in to the Pickwick project.