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Michael de Lisio , (January 22, 1911–Jan 21, 2003)

Oscar Wilde in America, ca. 1882

1968
16 1/2 in. x 9 3/8 in. x 7 1/2 in. (41.91 cm x 23.81 cm x 19.05 cm)

Medium and Support: bronze

Credit Line: gift of Sanford Schwartz

Accession Number: 2008.76

Commentary

Michael de Lisio, who had written poetry for many years, began making sculpture in 1965 when he was 54, inspired by a visit to his friend the sculptor Daniel Maloney. Picking up some wax in the studio he began to see what he could make with it.
From then on, working exclusively from photographs, de Lisio crafted small-scale portraits of well-known literary, musical, and artistic figures that he admired and in some cases knew.

De Lisio first worked in painted terra cotta. His move to cast bronze brought a more naturalized and substantial quality to the work. In a 1986 Zabriskie Gallery exhibition brochure, the artist described his artistic goal. “With no preconceived notion of how to make a sculpture, I have tried to combine a primitive technique with a sophisticated sensibility to create formsthat please as sculpture. My intention is to capture the poetry in the work and the reality in the lives of artists in chosen moments of time, leaving them with that sense of mystery, without which, for me, there is no attraction. All of the people I have sculpted fascinate me for their imaginative forays into worlds of make believe.”

Exhibition List

This object was included in the following exhibitions:

Inside, Outside, Upstairs, Downstairs: The Addison Anew Addison Gallery of American Art , 9/7/2010 - 3/27/2011
Muse [Phillips Academy Art 300] Addison Gallery of American Art , 3/8/2011 - 3/27/2011
Taking Shape: Sculpture at the Addison Addison Gallery of American Art , 9/17/2016 - 3/19/2017

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