Father Pitt

Category: Sculpture

  • Auditorium Entrance, Andrew W. Mellon Middle School, Mount Lebanon

    Entrance to Andrew W. Mellon Middle School

    The National Forum warns us that we have to keep an eye on this school. All the schools of its era in Mount Lebanon were designed by Ingham & Boyd, or by Ingham, Boyd & Pratt once Pratt became a partner. This one comes from the era when they were adapting Art Deco elements to their usual ruthlessly symmetrical classicism, and the result shows some similarity to the same firm’s Buhl Planetarium. It has not changed much since it was built, except that, when the name was changed from “Junior High School” to “Middle School,” the inscription was clumsily applied with no spacing between the letters. That bugs old Pa Pitt, but he is not going to get up on a ladder and fix it himself.

    Medallion with theatrical masks

    Father Pitt does not know the sculptor of these two medallions, but he has a pretty good guess. Compare them to the reliefs by Sidney Waugh on Buhl Planetarium: The Heavens and The Earth and Primitive Science and Modern Science. It seems likely that the same architects hired the same sculptor for these reliefs.

    Medallion with lyre
    Marquee
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

    The marquee is festooned with unexpectedly colorful Art Deco swags.

  • A Gift from Henry Phipps

    Statue in the Palm House

    When Phipps Conservatory opened in 1893, Henry Phipps donated this statue, which has has sat in the Palm House ever since.

    Face of the statue
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

  • Stowe Township World War I Memorial

    Statue on the Stowe Township World War I memorial

    We have seen this statue before, on the war memorial in Coraopolis. Here the doughboy is missing his bayonet, but otherwise the statue is identical, doubtless cast from the same mold. The three-sided base carries the township honor roll in bronze; and, following his usual practice, Father Pitt records all the names in high enough resolution to be easily legible.

    Stowe Township war memorial
    Honor roll 1
    Honor roll 3
    Honor roll 2

  • Edward Bigelow Contemplates the Cathedral of Learning

    Statue of Edward Bigelow and the Cathedral of Learning

    The statue of Edward Bigelow by Giuseppe Moretti, with the Cathedral of Learning in the background.

  • Grotesques on the Western Theological Seminary, Allegheny West

    Yawning head

    The Western Theological Seminary (now West Hall of the Community College of Allegheny County) was built in 1914. It was designed by Thomas Hannah, but so far old Pa Pitt has not found the name of the sculptor who decorated the entrance with these delightful grotesques.

    Tower of the Western Theological Seminary (now West Hall)
    Yawning head face-on
    Mr. It Figures
    Mr. It Figures from the side
    Salamander
    Monkish head
    Tortoise
    Grotesque staring face
    Foliage skull
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

  • Niches on the College of Fine Arts Building, Carnegie Mellon University

    Henry Hornbostel designed the front of the Fine Arts Building with niches that display all styles of architectural decoration, and more practically give students a place to sit between classes. The niches have continued to accumulate sculpture in styles from all over the world. The whimsical figures in the Gothic niche may have been done by Achille Giammartini.

    Figure in first niche
    Figure in first niche
    Foliage with critters in first niche
    Lion eating an unfortunate Gothic figure
    Figure in first niche
    Figure in first niche
    Second niche

    In the classical niche, the three orders of Greek architecture: Corinthian, Doric, Ionic, demonstrated with correct proportions.

    Third niche
    Fourth niche
    Sculpture in Indian style, with Egyptian column

  • Decorations on the Maginn Building

    Arch on the Maginn Building

    Father Pitt is fairly certain that the ornamental stonecarving on the Maginn Building was done by Achille Giammartini, Pittsburgh’s master of Romanesque whimsies. The style is Giammartini’s, and the building was designed by Charles Bickel, who is known to have brought in Giammartini for the German National Bank (now the Granite Building) around the corner, as we see in this advertisement:

    Advertisement for Achille Giammartini

    But, you say, speculation is not enough for you. You want the artist’s signature. Well, to old Pa Pitt, this looks like a signature:

    Face with mustache in the corner of the arch

    In fact, Father Pitt has formed the hypothesis that Giammartini littered the city with self-caricatures in Romanesque grotesque. Several other buildings bear carved faces similar to these two in the corners of the arch on the seventh floor of the Maginn Building.

    Grotesque face

    The rest of the ornaments are also in Giammartini’s trademark style: lush Romanesque foliage with slightly cartoonish faces peering out from the leaves.

    Capital
    Capital with face
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

  • Third Avenue Front of the Times Building

    Third Avenue front of the Times Building

    The Times Building, designed by Frederick Osterling in his Richardsonian Romanesque period, is a block deep, so it has fronts on both Fourth Avenue and Third Avenue. The Fourth Avenue front is narrower; the Third Avenue front has one more bay, and a single grand arch in the middle. The decorative carving is probably by Achille Giammartini, who is known to have worked with Osterling on the Marine Bank and the Bell Telephone Building, and all his trademark whimsy is on display here.

    Face
    Face
    Foliage
    Face in profile
    Corner of the arch
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

  • The Big Rooster

    On DeLuca’s diner in the Strip.

    Nikon COOLPIX P100.

  • Reliefs by Henry Hering on the Federal Reserve Bank Building

    Eagle by Henry Hering

    This building, put up in 1930–1931, was a branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, and the Clevelanders Walker & Weeks were the architects—but with Henry Hornbostel and Eric Fisher Wood as “consulting architects.”1 Old Pa Pitt doesn’t know exactly how far the consulting went. At any rate, the architects chose sculptor Henry Hering, who had done several prominent decorations in Cleveland, to create the cast-aluminum reliefs for this building. The picture below is from 2015, but it will serve to show the placement of the reliefs:

    Federal Reserve Bank Building

    The three main figures are obviously allegorical; they seem to represent industry, agriculture, and the professions.

    Relief by Henry Hering
    Relief
    Relief
    Decoration in aluminum
    1. Source: Walter Kidney, Henry Hornbostel: An Architect’s Master Touch, where this building is no. 137 in the List of Works. ↩︎