Oronzio Maldarelli was an American sculptor (1892 - 1963) born in Naples, Italy.
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He was born on September 9, 1892 and immigrated with his parents, Michael Maldarelli, a goldsmith, and mother, Louisa Rizzo Maldarelli, to the United States in 1901. About 1906 he began taking modeling lessons at the Cooper Union, and after two years began to study at the National Academy of Design with Leon Kroll, Ivan Olinsky, and Hermon Atkins MacNeil. In 1912 he entered the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design, where he studied under Jo Davidson, Elie Nadelman, John Gregory and others.
Maldarelli's classical training allowed him to obtain commissions for both garden decorations and architectural sculpture. However as he grew older his work became more and more abstracted, though it would remain basically figurative.
He taught at both Sarah Lawrence College and Columbia University. He died in New York City in 1962 at the age of 71 from a heart attack.
Like many other sculptors of his day Maldarelli produced both architectural and funerary sculpture.
He was a member of the National Sculpture Society, and was awarded the Widener Gold Medal from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.