A. Contini & Son was a fine art plaster mold casting

Plaster mold casting

Plaster mold casting is a metalworking casting process similar to sand casting except the molding material is plaster of paris instead of sand. Like sand casting, plaster mold casting is an expendable mold processes, however it can only be used with non-ferrous materials. It is used for castings as...

 firm founded by Italian American

Italian American

An Italian American , is an American of Italian ancestry. The designation may also refer to someone possessing Italian and American dual citizenship...

 Attilio Contini and his son Cesare. Based in New York, New York, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, A. Contini & Son made plaster molds for sculptors around the world including James Earle Fraser, Ivan Mestrovic

Ivan Meštrovic

Ivan Meštrović was a Croatian and Yugoslav sculptor and architect born in Vrpolje, Croatia...

, Herbert Haseltine

Herbert Haseltine

Herbert Chevalier Haseltine was an Italian-born French/American animalier sculptor, most known as an Equestrian sculptor.-Early life and education:...

, A. Stirling Calder, Adolph Weinman, among others.

History

Attilio Contini (1884-1960) is a fourth generation moulder/caster. He train in Italy with his father Augusto Contini which family lore notes worked on the Victor Emmanuel II Monunent in Rome. Attilio moved to the United States to work on sculpture for the 1904 Louisiana Expostion at the urging of his cousin Eugenio Contini, also a moulder and caster. Attilio initially worked for the Roman Bronze Foundry casting some of Frederic Remington's later works. He later started his plaster mold and casting firm. A. Contini and Sons was formed when his son Cesare (1907-1990) became an active moulder and caster c1919. Attilio had several sons to include Orazio, Amedeo, Victor and James who worked in the family business through to the late 1980s. Their last work was for Stanley Bleifeld on his The Lone Sailor, Navy Memorial in Washington, DC. Among the works cast by Contini family are Prometheus in NYC, the Jefferson Memorial, the US Grant Memorial and the Fredrick Hart's portico for the National Cathedral Night, Their work can be seen in nearly every major US city. Among their clients were Paul Manship, Anna Huntington, Georg Lober, Laura Fraser, Richard Recchia and Donald DeLue. The firm worked with many notable public art

Public art

The term public art properly refers to works of art in any media that have been planned and executed with the specific intention of being sited or staged in the physical public domain, usually outside and accessible to all...

 sculptures including works by James Earle Fraser who worked closely with Attilio in the 1920s to create The End of the Trail. Cesare would later restore and create the molds for a re-installation of The End of the Trail at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum

National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum

The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum is a museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, with more than 28,000 Western and American Indian art works and artifacts. The facility also has the world's most extensive collection of American rodeo, photographs, barbed wire, saddlery, and early rodeo trophies...

.

Biliography

• Scriver, Mary Strachan. Bronze Inside and Out: A Biographical Memoir of Bob Scriver. Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2007. ISBN 9781552382271

External links

• A. Contini & Son records, 1916-1981 in the collection of the Archives of American Art
  Archives of American Art
  The Archives of American Art is the largest collection of primary resources documenting the history of the visual arts in the United States. More than 16 million items of original material are housed in the Archives' research centers in Washington, D.C...