Corrado Giuseppe Parducci (March 10, 1900 - November 22, 1981) was an Italian-American architectural sculptor who was a celebrated artist for his numerous early 20th Century works.
Contents |
Parducci was born in Buti, Italy, a small village near Pisa, and immigrated to New York City in the United States in 1904. At a young age, he was sponsored by heiress/sculptor Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney and sent to art school. He attended the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design and Art Students League. His teachers included anatomist George Bridgman and sculptor Albin Polasek.[1]
Parducci was apprenticed to architectural sculptor Ulysses Ricci in 1917. While working for Ricci, and later while in the Anthony DiLorenzo studio, his work came to the attention of Detroit architect Albert Kahn.
In 1924 Parducci travled to Detroit to work for Kahn, only planning to stay for a few months. However, with the automotive industry booming in the 1920s, Parducci moved his family to Michigan and ended up spending the rest of his career working from Detroit. One of Parducci's known Detroit studios was located at Cass Ave. and Sibley St., but it has been demolished. Parducci's studio had tall windows which illuminated his work. Parducci’s work can be found on many of the Detroit area’s finest buildings including from churches, schools, banks, hospitals and residences.[1][2]
His sculptures can be found in most major Michigan cities including Ann Arbor, Dearborn, Flint, Grand Rapids, Jackson, Kalamazoo, Marquette, Royal Oak, Saginaw, and Ypsilanti. By the end of his long and productive career, Parducci’s efforts adorned about 600 buildings.
The last commission Parducci completed was a portrait of architect Henry Hobson Richardson in a Romanesque setting that was carved on a lintel in the Senate chamber of the New York State Capitol in Albany, New York in 1980.
Although Parducci worked in a variety of styles, notably Romanesque, Classical, Renaissance and even Aztec/Mayan/Pueblo Deco, it was his pioneering of the Greco Deco style for which he is best remembered.
Anthony Di Lorenzo, New York ornamentalist, held two contracts for interior decoration in the Detroit Masonic Temple - #1 (Corrado Parducci) $13,160.00 and #2 for $9,680.00. Thomas Di Lorenzo’s contract for interior decoration amounted to $59,074.00. Joe (Corrado) Parducci worked in the New York firm of Ricci, DiLorenzo and Aldolino as a very young man. When the firm broke up, he stayed with DiLorenzo who was an ornamentalist and Joe was the sculptor. Joe met Albert Kahn in New York City who urged him to come to Detroit and work on two bank buildings on Griswold Street . Joe came to Detroit to work for only a couple of months. Anthony DiLorenzo had some work here and Kahn wanted Parducci. He worked indirectly for Kahn through DiLorenzo. Other work came from Detroit architects Donaldson & Meier, Smith, Hinchman & Grylls, and George D. Mason.[1]
The first 8 months, 1924 to middle of 1925, Joe worked under DiLorenzo. The Masonic Temple contracts were DiLorenzos’ jobs until Parducci bought them out for $5,000.00.
William F. Gurche had the contract for the exterior sculpture. Henry Steinman, a New York sculptor working in the Detroit studio of William F. Gurche, sculpted the Tylers on the four towers of the Ritual Building . Leo William Friedlander, a New York sculptor and 1913 winner of the Prix de Rome, was paid $1,100.00 to sculpt the three figures – King Solomon, King Hiram and Hiram Abiff – over the Ritual Tower entrance.
All the light fixtures were custom-made by the Sterling Bronze Company of New York . The lighting fixtures in the lodges, hallways, and foyers were designed for the tasks at hand.
Corrado Giuseppe Parducci's lobby design was reportedly adapted from an old castle in Palermo, Sicily . Parducci did model the 5’ bronze floor plaque depicting Strength, Truth and Beauty. He sculpted the two plaques in the stone walls of the interior stairs of the Scottish Rite entrance. These two are repeated in the lobby as plaster plaques.