James Rosati (1911 in
Washington, Pennsylvania
Washington is a city in and the county seat of Washington County, Pennsylvania. A part of the Greater Pittsburgh area in the southwestern part of the state, the city is home to Washington & Jefferson College and Pony League baseball. The populat ...
1911 – 1988 in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
) was an American abstract sculptor. He is best known for creating an outdoor sculpture in New York: a stainless steel ''
Ideogram
An ideogram or ideograph (from Greek "idea" and "to write") is a graphic symbol that represents an idea or concept, independent of any particular language, and specific words or phrases. Some ideograms are comprehensible only by famili ...
.''
Life
Born near
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsylva ...
, Rosati moved to New York in 1944, where he befriended fellow sculptor
Phillip Pavia. He was a charter member of the
Eighth Street Club (the Club) and the
New York School of
abstract expressionists. Rosati was among the participants in the
9th Street Art Exhibition
The 9th Street Art Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture is the official title artist Franz Kline hand-lettered onto the poster he designed for the Ninth Street Show (May 21-June 10, 1951). and the subsequent Stable Gallery shows. He met and became friends with painters
Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning (; ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. He was born in Rotterdam and moved to the United States in 1926, becoming an American citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married painter El ...
and
Franz Kline
Franz Kline (May 23, 1910 – May 13, 1962) was an American painter. He is associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement of the 1940s and 1950s. Kline, along with other action painters like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Robert Mot ...
, and sculptor
David Smith. He was awarded the
Mr and Mrs Frank G. Logan Art Institute Prize for sculpture in 1962 and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in 1964. A 1969 show at Brandeis University lifted his career to new heights. He had other solo exhibitions and was in numerous group shows.
Rosati is perhaps best known for his sculptures in stone from the 1960s, and the 1972 stainless steel Ideogram.
that stood over tall on the plaza between Towers 1 and 2 of the
World Trade Center
World Trade Centers are sites recognized by the World Trade Centers Association.
World Trade Center may refer to:
Buildings
* List of World Trade Centers
* World Trade Center (2001–present), a building complex that includes five skyscrapers, a ...
in New York City. Rosati created many monumental pieces of sculpture which are located in the United States and around the world.
After his death in 1988, he was interred at Immaculate Conception Cemetery in Washington, Pennsylvania.
Public collections
Public collections holding work by James Rosati include:
*
Albright-Knox Art Gallery
The Buffalo AKG Art Museum, formerly known as the Albright–Knox Art Gallery, is an art museum at 1285 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, New York, in Delaware Park. the museum's Elmwood Avenue campus is temporarily closed for construction. It hosted e ...
(Buffalo, New York)
*
Carnegie Museum of Art
The Carnegie Museum of Art, is an art museum in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Originally known as the Department of Fine Arts, Carnegie Institute and was at what is now the Main Branch of the Carnegie Library of Pittsbur ...
(Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
*
Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza Art Collection (Albany, New York)
*
Grounds for Sculpture
Grounds For Sculpture (GFS) is a sculpture park and museum located in Hamilton, New Jersey. It is located on the former site of Trenton Speedway. Founded in 1992 by John Seward Johnson II, the venue is dedicated to promoting an understanding ...
(Hamilton, New Jersey)
*
Honolulu Museum of Art
The Honolulu Museum of Art (formerly the Honolulu Academy of Arts) is an art museum in Honolulu, Hawaii. The museum is the largest of its kind in the state, and was founded in 1922 by Anna Rice Cooke. The museum has one of the largest single co ...
(Honolulu, Hawaii)
*
''Museo della Scultural Contemporanea - Matera'' (Matera, Italy)
*
National Gallery of Art (Washington, D. C.)
*
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...
(New York City)
*
Yale University Art Gallery
The Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG) is the oldest university art museum in the Western Hemisphere. It houses a major encyclopedic collection of art in several interconnected buildings on the campus of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. ...
(New Haven, Connecticut)
Selected works
* ''
Column I
''Column I'' is a 1983–1984 stainless steel sculpture by James Rosati, installed on the Stanford University campus in Stanford, California, United States. The abstract artwork was installed to commemorate Albert Elsen, an art history professor ...
'', Stanford University
* ''
Loo Wit
''Loo Wit'' is an outdoor 1975–1976 sculpture by James Rosati, currently installed at the Seattle University campus in Seattle, Washington.
Description
The tall abstract sculpture is made of enameled aluminum, and rests on a concrete base.
H ...
'', Seattle University
* ''Upright Form V'', 1982,
Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts,
Blount Cultural Park Blount may refer to:
People
*Blount (surname), surname of English derivation
Place names Canada
* Blount, Cochrane District, Ontario
England
* Kingston Blount
United States
* Blount, Georgia
* Blount, West Virginia
* Blount County (disa ...
,
Montgomery,
Alabama
References
Sources
*Marika Herskovic
''American Abstract and Figurative Expressionism: Style Is Timely Art Is Timeless''(New York School Press, 2009.) . p. 204-207
* Marika Herskovic
''New York School Abstract Expressionists Artists Choice by Artists,''(New York School Press, 2000.) . p. 16; p. 25; p. 38; p. 314-317
External links
James Rosati - American Artist (1911-1988)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rosati, James
1911 births
1988 deaths
20th-century American sculptors
20th-century American male artists
Abstract expressionist artists
American male sculptors
American people of Italian descent
Artists from New York City
Artists from Pittsburgh
Modern sculptors
Sculptors from New York (state)
Sculptors from Pennsylvania