Costantino (also known as Antine, in
Sardinia, or Tino, in the
US)[1][2][3][4]Nivola (July 5, 1911 – May 6, 1988) was an Italian sculptor, architectural sculptor, muralist, designer, and teacher.
Born in Sardinia, Nivola had already started his career when he fled Fascism for Paris in 1938, going to the U.S. in 1939. His major sculptural work is abstract, large-scale architectural reliefs in concrete, made in his own sandcasting and cement carving processes. These were erected in and on American buildings between the late 1950s and early 1970s. Creatively busy and while remaining active in Italy, Nivola also taught at the
Harvard Graduate School of Design,
Columbia University,
UC Berkeley, and elsewhere.
The
Nivola Museum in
Orani, Sardinia is dedicated to his life and sculpture, and hosts the largest collection of his smaller scale work.[5]
Early career
Nivola was born and grew up poor in
Orani, a village in
Sardinia. As an adolescent, he worked as an apprentice
stonemason. In
Sassari in 1926, Nivola served as apprentice to fellow painter
Mario Delitala, executing frescoes for the aula magna of the
local university.[1]
Nivola married fellow ISIA student Ruth Guggenheim in 1938, and left together for the United States via Paris in 1939. He established a home in Greenwich Village (first at
Waverly Place, then at No. 47 West Eighth Street[7]) to rebuild a social circle and a career despite speaking no English.
Nivola resumed a close friendship with artist
Saul Steinberg from Milan, attended meetings of the anti-fascist Italian-American
Mazzini Society in 1941, and by the 1940s Nivola was presiding over a weekly gathering of artists at
Del Pezzo's restaurant described by
Peter Blake [
de] as comparable to the
Algonquin Round Table.[8] One key friendship was
Le Corbusier. Introduced in 1945 by
Josep Lluís Sert, Nivola became warm lifelong friends with the Swiss architect, his houseguest on Corbu's rare trips to America.[9]
Supported by small exhibitions and a progression of jobs in factories,[10] for
Bonwit Teller, and for architectural magazines, the Nivolas bought a modest property in
Springs,
East Hampton, Long Island. It would expand to 35 acres. Their garden landscape, a series of outdoor rooms and a roofless solarium, was co-designed by the Nivolas and architect
Bernard Rudofsky; in 1950 Le Corbusier impulsively painted murals on two walls of their kitchen. On the nearby beach Nivola developed the principle of his distinctive concrete sandcasting technique while playing with his children. They sculpted wet sand, then poured a slurry of plaster or concrete into the form.
Once more Olivetti provided the sculptor with a major commission, for an interior wall in their stylish Fifth Avenue showroom in 1953. Nivola executed it with a refined, scaled-up version of the beach process, in a sequence of panels. The resulting attention and publicity started a successful career in large-scale architecture work which lasted for decades. One project, involving two thousand and ten cast-concrete panels for the
McCormick Place Exposition Center in Chicago in 1959, was touted as the largest such installation ever.
Nivola died of a heart attack in Southampton Hospital, Long Island, in May 1988. He was the father of children's book author Claire Nivola, and the grandfather of actor
Alessandro Nivola.[11] A foundation and
museum dedicated to Nivola's work opened in his hometown in 1995, in a building partly designed by architect
Peter Chermayeff.
Work
The Sardinian town of
Ulassai decided, in the early 1980s, to rehabilitate its neglected
municipal laundry building dating from 1903. It was turned into an open-air contemporary museum with a number of artists represented[12] –
Maria Lai,
Luigi Veronesi,
Guido Strazza. Nivola's contribution, a sculptural sound fountain, was completed in 1987 as his final work.
Nivola's public work includes:
sgraffito exterior mural wall, Gagarin House I, Litchfield, Connecticut, with architect
Marcel Breuer, 1952
interior sand-cast relief wall, Olivetti showroom, Fifth Avenue, New York City, with architects
BBPR, 1953 (razed)
Untitled, an interior cast-concrete mural of 132 panels in the former Mutual Insurance Company of Hartford (later Covenant Mutual Insurance Company), 95 Woodland Street, Hartford, Connecticut, with
Sherwood, Mills & Smith, architects, 1957
over 2000 cast-concrete panels for the exterior of
McCormick Place Exposition Center, Chicago, for Shaw, Metz & Associates, 1959 (destroyed 1967)
Untitled, a cast-concrete abstract exterior wall for the Mutual Insurance Company of Hartford, with
Sherwood, Mills & Smith, architects, 1960
18 polychrome cast stone horses and an 80-foot
sgraffito mural wall, for the Stephen Wise Towers housing development play area, with architect Richard G. Stein for the
New York City Housing Authority, 1964[13]
20 concrete panels for the
Connecticut Post Building, Bridgeport, Connecticut, 1966
Family of Man, two cast-concrete abstract bas-reliefs with forms suggesting family groupings, entry to the
Van Pelt Library, University of Pennsylvania,
Harbeson, Hough, Livingston & Larson architects. Building, 1962; sculpture, 1969
Dedicated to the American Secretary, 14 abstract panels of sand-cast steel-reinforced concrete in the lobby, with a companion free-standing figure in the courtyard, Continental Bank, 400 Market Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1970
33 sculpted panels on the history of communications theme, Janesville Gazette Building,
Janesville, Wisconsin, 1970[14]
work at the Palazzo del Consiglio Regionale (House of the Regional Council),
Cagliari, with architect Mario Fiorentino, 1987
^Onnis, Omar; Mureddu, Manuelle (2019). Illustres. Vita, morte e miracoli di quaranta personalità sarde (in Italian). Sestu: Domus de Janas.
ISBN978-88-97084-90-7.
OCLC1124656644.
Costantino Nivola. Sculture dipinti disegni, a cura di L. Caramel, C. Pirovano, Milano, Electa, 1999.
A. Crespi, F. Licht, S. Naitza, Nivola. Dipinti e grafica, Milano, Jaca Book, 1995.
U. Collu et al., Nivola dipinti e grafica, Milano, Jaca Book, 1995.
Museo Nivola, Nuoro, Ilisso, 1995.
S. Naitza (ed. by), Nivola, Nuoro, Ilisso, 1994.
F. Licht, A. Satta, R. Ingersoll,
Nivola: sculture, Milano, Jaca Book, 1991.
R. Bossaglia, P. Cherchi, Nivola, Nuoro, Ilisso, 1990.
Onnis, Omar; Mureddu, Manuelle (2019). Illustres. Vita, morte e miracoli di quaranta personalità sarde (in Italian). Sestu: Domus de Janas.
ISBN978-88-97084-90-7.
OCLC1124656644.