Paolo (Paul) Salvatore Abbate (April 9, 1884 – April 1, 1973) was an Italian-born sculptor and minister who lived and worked in Connecticut.

Personal life and education

Paolo Abbate was born in

Villarosa Villarosa is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Enna, in the region of Sicily in southern Italy. People * James E. Casale, architect *John LaRocca (1901–84), Sicilian-American mobster *Mike Fadale, actor, chef Sister cities * Morlanwel ...

on the Italian island of

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

. He studied under

Domenico Trentacoste Domenico Trentacoste (20 September 1859 – 18 March 1933) was an Italian sculptor. Biography Born in Palermo, Sicily; at the age of 12 years, Trentacoste began apprenticing with the sculptor Domenico Costantino. As a young man he travelled t ...

, director of the

Accademia di Belle Arti Firenze The Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze ("academy of fine arts of Florence") is an instructional art academy in Florence, in Tuscany, in central Italy. It was founded by Cosimo I de' Medici in 1563, under the influence of Giorgio Vasari. M ...

. In 1902, he moved to the United States. Abbate was a missionary for seven years for the American Missionary Association in

Pittsfield, Massachusetts Pittsfield is the largest city and the county seat of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is the principal city of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses all of Berkshire County. Pittsfield� ...

before moving to

Torrington, Connecticut Torrington is the most populated municipality and only city in Litchfield County, Connecticut, Litchfield County, Connecticut and the Northwest Hills (Connecticut), Northwest Hills region. It is also the core city of Greater Torrington, one of the ...

in 1928 where he established the Sul Monte Art Association, which sponsored exhibitions of the work of local artists. His studio became a gathering place for artists and art enthusiasts. He went on to found the Torrington Artists Association and to co-found the Torrington

Unico National UNICO National is a service organization of Italian Americans established in Waterbury, Connecticut in 1922 to "engage in charitable works, support higher education, and perform patriotic deeds". According to its website, it is the "largest Itali ...

organization.

Career

Abbate was a Realist sculptor who worked with bronze and marble."Paolo (Paul) S. Abbate"
''Ask Art''. Retrieved June 13, 2011. He served as the president of the International Fine Arts League and was a member of numerous professional organizations such as the

National Sculpture Society Founded in 1893, the National Sculpture Society (NSS) was the first organization of professional sculptors formed in the United States. The purpose of the organization was to promote the welfare of American sculptors, although its founding members ...

, Kent Art Association and the Connecticut Artists & Writers Society.

Notable collections

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay ...

*City of Newburgh,

Newburgh, New York Newburgh is a city in the U.S. state of New York, within Orange County. With a population of 28,856 as of the 2020 census, it is a principal city of the Poughkeepsie–Newburgh–Middletown metropolitan area. Located north of New York City, a ...

Mattatuck Museum Arts and History Center The Mattatuck Museum is a cultural institution based in Waterbury, Connecticut, USA. The museum's displays include the history, industries and culture of Waterbury and the Central Naugatuck Valley area, and art, including works about the state's hi ...

Waterbury, Connecticut Waterbury is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut on the Naugatuck River, southwest of Hartford and northeast of New York City. Waterbury is the second-largest city in New Haven County, Connecticut. According to the 2020 US Census, in 20 ...

* National Arts Club, New York City * Torrington Historical Society,

Selected works

* Bust of

Dante Alighieri Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: '' ...

, Brown University (bronze, granite base, c. 1900) * Bust of Dante Alighieri, Newburgh Free Library courtyard (1921) * Imagination, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury (bronze) * Seated female nude, Mattatuck Museum, Waterburg (bronze)

References

Notes

Bibliography

*American Missionary Association ''The American Missionary: Volume 76.'' Albany: American Missionary Association, Congregational Home Missionary Society, 1922.

External links

Paolo S. Abbate papers
in the collection of the

Archives of American Art The Archives of American Art is the largest collection of primary resources documenting the history of the visual arts in the United States. More than 20 million items of original material are housed in the Archives' research centers in Washingt ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Abbate, Paolo 1884 births 1973 deaths People from Villarosa Italian emigrants to the United States People from Torrington, Connecticut 20th-century American sculptors 20th-century American male artists American male sculptors Artists from Sicily