Editing Costantino Nivola

{{short description|Italian sculptor}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=July 2018}}
[[File:Sculpture nivola.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Costantino Nivola, Figura Femminile (Madre) Marmo, 1987, at the Palazzo del Consiglio Regionale, Cagliari]]
[[File:Nuoro - piazza Satta 1.jpg|thumb|200px|right|A series of sculptures located in Piazza Satta in Nuoro (1967)]]
[[File:Orani - Museo Nivola (2017).jpg|thumb|The Nivola Museum in Orani (Sardinia), view of the park]]
'''Costantino''' (also known as '''Antine''', in [[Sardinia]], or '''Tino''', in the [[United States|US]])'''<ref name="auto">{{cite web|title=Nivola biography|url=http://www.museonivola.it/en/costantino-nivola/biografia/biografia/|website=Museo Nivola|access-date=October 26, 2017}}</ref>'''<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.ilisso.it/nivola-ho-bussato-alle-porte-di-questa-citta-meravigliosa/|title=Nivola. Ho bussato alle porte di questa città meravigliosa {{!}} ILISSO|language=it-IT|access-date=2019-12-09}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Illustres. Vita, morte e miracoli di quaranta personalità sarde|last1=Onnis|first1=Omar|last2=Mureddu|first2=Manuelle|publisher=Domus de Janas|year=2019|isbn=978-88-97084-90-7|location=Sestu|language=it|oclc=1124656644}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Altea|first=Giuliana|title=Costantino Nivola|publisher=Ilisso|year=2005|isbn=88-89188-13-8|location=Nuoro|language=it|oclc=60436870}}</ref> '''Nivola''' (July 5, 1911 – May 6, 1988) was a [[Sardinian people|Sardinian]] and Italian sculptor, architectural sculptor, muralist, designer, and teacher.

Born in [[Orani, Sardinia|Orani]], a town in the region of 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]], [[University of California, Berkeley|UC Berkeley]], and elsewhere.
[[File:Museo Nivola, installation view (ph. by Armin Linke).jpg|thumb|
Nivola Museum (ph. Armin Linke)
]]
The [[Nivola Museum]] in [[Orani, Sardinia]] is dedicated to his life and sculpture, and hosts the largest collection of his smaller scale work.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.museonivola.it/?_r=0|title=Museo Nivola|website=www.museonivola.it}}</ref>

== Early career ==

Nivola was born and grew up poor in [[Orani, Italy|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 [[:it:Mario Delitala|Mario Delitala]], executing frescoes for the ''aula magna'' of the [[University of Sassari|local university]].<ref name="auto"/>

In 1931 Nivola enrolled in the ISIA ([[:it:Istituto superiore per le industrie artistiche (Monza)|''Istituto superiore per le industrie artistiche'']], the State Institute of Industrial Arts) in [[Monza]].  Through one of his teachers, the architect [[Giuseppe Pagano]], he contributed work to the 1936 [[Milan Triennial VI]] and the Italian Pavilion at the [[Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne|1937 Paris Exposition]].  This drew the attention of [[Adriano Olivetti]], who named him art director of his company's Publicity Department, where Nivola "made a significant contribution to... 'the [[Olivetti]] style'.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Gitler|first1=Inbal Ben-Asher|title=Monuments and Site-Specific Sculpture in Urban and Rural Space|date=May 11, 2017|publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing|page=136|isbn=9781443892711|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=q2vXDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA136|access-date=October 27, 2017}}</ref>

== United States ==

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<ref>{{cite web|title=Greenwich Village Historic District Designation Report|url=http://www.nyc.gov/html/lpc/downloads/pdf/reports/GREENWICH_VILLAGE_HISTORIC_DISTRICT_-_VOLUME_1.pdf|website=nyc.gov|access-date=October 27, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170212024348/http://www.nyc.gov/html/lpc/downloads/pdf/reports/GREENWICH_VILLAGE_HISTORIC_DISTRICT_-_VOLUME_1.pdf|archive-date=February 12, 2017|url-status=dead}}</ref>) 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-fascism|anti-fascist]] Italian-American [[Mazzini Society]] in 1941, and by the 1940s Nivola was presiding over a weekly gathering of artists at [[Del Pezzo Restaurant|Del Pezzo's restaurant]] described by {{ill|Peter Blake (architect)|lt=Peter Blake|de|Peter Blake (Architekt)}} as comparable to the [[Algonquin Round Table]].<ref>{{cite news|last1=Kay|first1=Jane Holtz|title=Dreams of Stone and Glass|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1993/11/21/books/dreams-of-stone-and-glass.html|access-date=October 27, 2017|work=The New York Times|date=November 21, 1993}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Peter|first1=Blake|title=The Master Builders: Le Corbusier, Mies Van Der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright|date=1996|publisher=W. W. Norton & Company|page=132|isbn=9780393315042|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4roPWSaQSOQC&pg=PA132|access-date=October 27, 2017}}</ref>

Supported by small exhibitions and a progression of jobs in factories,<ref>{{cite news|last1=Patsy|first1=Southgate|title=Ruth Nivola: Spinning Gold From Yarns|url=http://easthamptonstar.com/Archive/3/Ruth-Nivola-Spinning-Gold-Yarns|access-date=October 27, 2017|publisher=The East Hampton Star|date=May 19, 1997|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171027181741/http://easthamptonstar.com/Archive/3/Ruth-Nivola-Spinning-Gold-Yarns|archive-date=October 27, 2017|url-status=dead}}</ref> for [[Bonwit Teller]], and for architectural magazines, the Nivolas bought a modest property in [[Springs, New York|Springs]], [[East Hampton (town), New York|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.

In 1951 Nivola was one of the artists shown in the pivotal [[9th Street Art Exhibition]], hung by [[Leo Castelli]].

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.

In 1954 Nivola was named to direct the Design Workshop at the [[Harvard Graduate School of Design]], where he stayed until 1957.  He was also visiting professor or artist in residence at Columbia University (1961), Harvard (1970 and 1973), Dartmouth (1978), UC Berkeley (1978–79 and 1982), and the [[Royal Academy of Art, The Hague]] (1982).  The [[American Institute of Graphic Arts]] awarded him its Certificate of Excellence. In 1972 the [[American Academy of Arts and Letters]] admitted Nivola as its first non-American member.

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]].<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/17/books/review/childrens-books-orani-by-claire-a-nivola.html|title=Children's Books - Orani - By Claire A. Nivola|first=Tomie|last=dePaola|work=The New York Times |date=July 15, 2011|via=NYTimes.com}}</ref>  A foundation and [[Nivola Museum|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 [[:it:Lavatoio comunale di Ulassai|municipal laundry building]] dating from 1903.  It was turned into an open-air contemporary museum with a number of artists represented<ref>{{cite web|title=Ulassai, lavatoio (laundry)|url=http://www.sardegnacultura.it/j/v/253?s=21547&v=2&c=2488&c1=&t=1|website=sardegna cultura (Italian language)|access-date=October 27, 2017|archive-date=October 27, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171027180654/http://www.sardegnacultura.it/j/v/253?s=21547&v=2&c=2488&c1=&t=1|url-status=dead}}</ref> – [[:it:Maria Lai|Maria Lai]], [[Luigi Veronesi]], [[:it:Guido Strazza|Guido Strazza]].  Nivola's contribution, a sculptural sound fountain, was completed in 1987 as his final work.  
  
[[File:4 telaio al lavatoio con sotto la fontana che canta di nivola.JPG|right|thumb|sound fountain, Ulassai Municipal Laundry Building]]

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)
* exterior panel for the [[William E. Grady CTE High School]], Brooklyn, New York, 1957 
* ''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<ref>{{cite news|last1=O'Kane|first1=Lawrence|title=Art Forms Will Have Free Play in a City Project's Community Plaza|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1964/05/08/art-forms-will-have-free-play-in-a-city-projects-community-plaza.html|access-date=October 27, 2017|work=The New York Times|date=May 8, 1964}}</ref>
* 20 concrete panels for the [[Connecticut Post]] Building, Bridgeport, Connecticut, 1966
* monument to poet [[Sebastiano Satta]], [[Nuoro]], Sardinia, 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<ref>{{cite web|last1=Heine|first1=Gina R.|title=Work to restore communication mural|url=http://www.gazettextra.com/news/2012/jun/04/work-restore-communication-mural/|website=Janesville GazetteXtra|date=June 3, 2012 |access-date=October 27, 2017}}</ref>
* work at the Palazzo del Consiglio Regionale (House of the Regional Council), [[Cagliari]], with architect Mario Fiorentino, 1987

{{commons category|Costantino Nivola}}

== References ==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
* Website of the Nivola Foundation and Museum [https://web.archive.org/web/20171211193847/http://www.museonivola.it/en/ Museo Nivola]
* Article in ''Metropolis'': Nivola on Nivola [https://web.archive.org/web/20020616025113/http://www.metropolismag.com/html/content_0302/niv/index_c.html Costantino Nivola Reconsidered | Metropolis Magazine | March 2002]

==Books==
* G. Altea e A. Camarda, [https://www.academia.edu/32042771/Formal_autonomy_versus_public_participation_The_Modernist_Monument_in_Costantino_Nivola_s_Work “Formal Autonomy versus Public Participation: The Modernist Monument in Costantino Nivola’s work”], in I. Ben-Asher Gitler (ed.), Monuments, Site-Specific Sculpture and Urban Space, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017, pp.&nbsp;134–162
* G. Altea and A. Camarda, [https://www.academia.edu/19890793/Costantino_Nivola._La_Sintesi_delle_arti Costantino Nivola. La sintesi delle arti], Ilisso, 2015
* A. Mereu, Il Nivola ritrovato. Un artista tra l’America e il Mugello, Firenze, Nardini editore, 2012.
* Renato Miracco (ed.), Costantino Nivola. 100 Years of Creativity, Milano, Charta, 2012.
* Maddalena Mameli, Le Corbusier e Costantino Nivola. New York 1946–1953, Franco Angeli, Milano 2012.
* G. Altea (a cura di), Seguo la traccia nera e sottile. I disegni di Costantino Nivola, Agave, Sassari 2011.
* Nivola. L’investigazione dello spazio, ed. by C. Pirovano, Nuoro, Ilisso, 2010.
* G. Altea, Costantino Nivola, Ilisso, Nuoro 2004.
* U. Collu et al., Museo Nivola, Nuoro, Ilisso, 2004.
* S. Forrestier, Nivola Terrecotte. Opere dello studio Nivola, Amagansett, USA, Milano, Jaca Book, 2004.
* R. Cassanelli, U. Collu, O.Selvafolta (eds), Nivola Fancello Pintori. Percorsi del moderno, Jaca Book, Milano 2003.
* Costantino Nivola in Springs, ed. by M. Martegani, New York-Nuoro, The Parrish Art Museum-Ilisso, 2003.
* Nivola, Fancello, Pintori. Percorsi del moderno, eds R. Cassanelli, U. Collu, O. Selvafolta, Milano, Jaca Book, 2003.
* Nivola. Biografia per immagini, with texts by R. Venturi, D. Ashton and D. Mormorio, Nuoro, Ilisso, 2001
* Marika Herskovic, [http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/50666793&tab=holdings ''New York School Abstract Expressionists Artists Choice by Artists,''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070929103229/http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/50666793%26tab%3Dholdings |date=September 29, 2007 }} (New York School Press, 2000.) {{ISBN|0-9677994-0-6}}. p.&nbsp;18; p.&nbsp;38; p.&nbsp;266–269.
* 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, [http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/32926589&referer=brief_results ''Nivola: sculture''], Milano, Jaca Book, 1991.
* R. Bossaglia, P. Cherchi, Nivola, Nuoro, Ilisso, 1990.
*{{cite book|first1=Omar|last2=Mureddu|first2=Manuelle|last1=Onnis|title=Illustres. Vita, morte e miracoli di quaranta personalità sarde|oclc=1124656644|publisher=Domus de Janas|year=2019|isbn=978-88-97084-90-7|location=Sestu|language=it}}

{{Olivetti}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nivola, Costantino}}
[[Category:1911 births]]
[[Category:1988 deaths]]
[[Category:People from the Province of Nuoro]]
[[Category:20th-century Italian sculptors]]
[[Category:20th-century Italian male artists]]
[[Category:Architectural sculptors]]
[[Category:American people of Italian descent]]
[[Category:Harvard Graduate School of Design faculty]]
[[Category:Italian contemporary artists]]
[[Category:Italian male sculptors]]
[[Category:Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters]]
[[Category:Italian modern sculptors]]
[[Category:Olivetti people]]