Raymond Puccinelli, also known as Raimondo Puccinelli (1904–1986), he was an American sculptor and educator. He was active in his work in San Francisco, Baltimore, and Florence, Italy.

Early life

Raymond Puccinelli was born on May 5, 1904, in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, his early childhood home was on Jessie Street in the neighborhood of

South of Market South of Market (SoMa) is a neighborhood in San Francisco, California, so named due to its location south of Market Street. It contains several sub-neighborhoods including South Beach, Yerba Buena, and Rincon Hill. SoMa is home to many of ...

. His father Antonio (or Antone) Giovanni Puccinelli was Italian from Lucca, and his mother Pearl (née Andreson) had

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

heritage. He attended Lowell High School. Starting at age 15, he started attended theatre classes at University of California, Berkeley on a scholarship and he learned about writing plays and designing stages.

Career

Puccinelli studied fine arts at California School of Fine Arts (now

San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a Private college, private art school, college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mis ...

), and at the Rudolph Schaeffer School of Design. In 1927, Puccinelli travelled to

Lucca Città di Lucca ( ; ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the Serchio River, in a fertile plain near the Ligurian Sea. The city has a population of about 89,000, while its Province of Lucca, province has a population of 383,9 ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

for a year to study further sculptural training and Italian art history (specifically Romanesque, Gothic, and late Renaissance sculpture). When he returned to San Francisco, he studied under Jorge Vieira and

Beniamino Bufano Beniamino "Bene" Bufano (October 15, 1890August 18, 1970) was an Italian American sculptor, best known for his large-scale monuments representing peace and his modernist work which often featured smoothly rounded animals and relatively simple sha ...

. In the 1940s, he had an art studio in Chinatown, San Francisco at 15 Hotaling Place. He had shared studio space with

Diego Rivera Diego Rivera (; December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957) was a Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the Mexican muralism, mural movement in Mexican art, Mexican and international art. Between 1922 and 1953, Rivera painted mural ...

, where he was able to meet

Fernand Léger Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (; February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was a French painting, painter, sculpture, sculptor, and film director, filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of cubism (known as "tubism") which he gradually ...

and

Oskar Kokoschka Oskar Kokoschka (1 March 1886 – 22 February 1980) was an Austrian artist, poet, playwright and teacher, best known for his intense expressionistic portraits and landscapes, as well as his theories on vision that influenced the Viennese Expre ...

. Puccinelli taught sculpture at

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

(UC Berkeley), and periodically at

Mills College Mills College at Northeastern University in Oakland, California is part of Northeastern University's global university system. Mills College was founded as the Young Ladies Seminary in 1852 in Benicia, California; it was relocated to Oakland in ...

. In 1948, Puccinelli moved to

Flushing Flushing may refer to: Places Netherlands * Flushing, Netherlands, an English name for the city of Vlissingen, Netherlands United Kingdom * Flushing, Cornwall, a village in Cornwall, England * The Flushing, a building in Suffolk, England ...

Queens Queens is the largest by area of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Located near the western end of Long Island, it is bordered by the ...

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to teach at

Queens College Queens College (QC) is a public college in the New York City borough of Queens. Part of the City University of New York system, Queens College occupies an campus primarily located in Flushing. Queens College was established in 1937 and offe ...

. The following year in 1949, Puccinelli had a retrospective exhibition at

Philadelphia Art Alliance The Philadelphia Art Alliance at University of the Arts was a multidisciplinary arts center located in the Rittenhouse Square section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was the oldest multidisciplinary arts center in the United States for visual, ...

. In 1957, Puccinelli toured

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

as a cultural representative of the

United States Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or simply the State Department, is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy of the United State ...

. He taught at the Rinehart School of Sculpture, where he became

Dean Dean may refer to: People * Dean (given name) * Dean (surname), a surname of Anglo-Saxon English origin * Dean (South Korean singer), a stage name for singer Kwon Hyuk * Dean Delannoit, a Belgian singer most known by the mononym Dean * Dean Sw ...

in October 1958. In 1960, Puccinelli moved to

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

, where he worked in a studio in Piazza Donatello 18. In Europe, he used the name "Raimondo Puccinelli".

Public art

* ''Guglielmo Marconi Memorial Plaque'' (1938), Lombard Street, North Beach, San Francisco. * ''Panther'' (1940),

Hartnell College Hartnell College is a public community college in Salinas, California. Established in 1920 as Salinas Junior College, Hartnell is one of 115 schools that constitute the California Community Colleges, one of the three higher education systems i ...

, Salinas, California, this piece was created with support from the

Federal Art Project The Federal Art Project (1935–1943) was a New Deal program to fund the visual arts in the United States. Under national director Holger Cahill, it was one of five Federal Project Number One projects sponsored by the Works Progress Administratio ...

. * ''Grizzly Bear'' (1955), UC Berkeley, Berkeley, California. * ''Floating'' (1984), fountain

Kaufbeuren Kaufbeuren (; Bavarian language, Bavarian: ''Kaufbeiren'') is an independent city, independent town in the ''Regierungsbezirk'' of Swabia (Bavaria), Swabia, Bavaria. The town is an enclave within the Districts of Germany, district of Ostallgäu. ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

Personal life

In the 1930s, he had been married to artist

Dorothy Wagner Puccinelli Dorothy Wagner Puccinelli, also known as Dorothy Puccinelli Cravath (December 19, 1901 – May 24, 1974), was a New Deal-era artist and muralist. She was based in San Francisco, California. Biography Born as Dorothy Wagner on December 19, 190 ...

, which ended in divorce. He had regularly sketched dancers in the 1930s and 1940s and he eventually married a dancer, Esther Cecilia Fehlen in the 1940s. Together with Fehlen, they had one daughter.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Puccinelli, Raymond 1904 births 1986 deaths Artists from San Francisco Artists from Florence San Francisco Art Institute alumni American people of Italian descent University of California, Berkeley faculty Mills College faculty Queens College, City University of New York faculty Maryland Institute College of Art faculty Rudolph Schaeffer School of Design alumni