Mazzolini Foundry

American

(not assigned)Yellow Springs, Ohio, USA, North America

BiographyAmos E. Mazzolini was born in Barga, Italy, in 1893, but, from the age of six, spent his youth in Germany, receiving his art degree from the DŸsseldorf Kunst Academie. ÊHe was brought to Yellow Springs in the 1920's by Arthur E. Morgan, then president of Antioch College, in order to develop the Antioch Foundry as part of the college's new work-study program. ÊThe foundry later split in two, with the commercial part becoming the Morris Bean Foundry, while Mazzolini created his art foundry. The excellence of this foundry attracted such artists as Carl Milles, and it executed major works for all over the United States. ÊAmos Mazzolini was also a superb sculptor, working in a traditional mode. He created fountains and other public sculpture, and Êexecuted numerous portrait sculptures, both in the round and in relief. Mazzolini was Antioch's sculpture professor for thirty years up until the time of his death in 1957. ÊHis kindness and generosity to students who showed serious interest in the visual arts was legendary. He also sculpted busts of Nobel Prize winning poet Henryk Sinkiewicz and pianist Jan Paderewski for the Polish Garden before embarking on a long career as an artist at Ohio's Antioch College, where he also opened an art foundry for teaching. 23"H X 24"W.

AMOS E. MAZZOLINI: INSTRUCTOR IN MODELING (SCULPTURE), MANAGER OF ANTIOCH ART FOUNDRY
"Amos Mazzolini was the Antioch sculpture professor, and was a superb sculptor in a traditional vein, one who received many commissions. He also ran an art foundry, which, I realized later, was perhaps the finest of its kind, one wherein not a line of the fingerprint of the artist was lost. Without advertising, work poured in, in an unending stream. As it provided him with a handsome income, at the end of each year, Amos would donate this entire faculty salary back to the College. His generosity to his students was even greater. There was nothing he would not do for those who showed interest and talent, including the use of his foundry for plaster casting and even bronze casting. He was the ultimate craftsman and taught by example even more than by word. His friendship extended outside the classroom, as during every term he and his wife would provide a sumptuous meal for the whole class. He agreed to take four of us sculpture students on a memorable vacation trip to Mexico. When he was dying, he told me to go to the foundry and take his best modeling tools; they have been with me for fifty-six years now, reminding me to get to work, and evoking all those happy hours in the Mazzolini foundry."
-Renata Manasse Schwebel '53

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