Bruno Mankowski

Bruno Mankowski (October 30, 1902 - July 31, 1990) was a German-born American sculptor, carver, ceramicist and medalist.

Executing the designs of other sculptors, he carved architectural ornament for the United States Capitol, the United States Supreme Court Building, and the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building, in Washington, D.C.

Mankowski was also a high-regarded medalist, receiving numerous commissions and awards.

Life and career He was born in Berlin to Tadeusz Mankowski and Emily Kaselow. His father was an architectural sculptor, who gave him early art instruction, and under whom he later apprenticed. He studied under Joseph Thorak at the Municipal and State Art Schools in Berlin. Mankowski emigrated to the United States in 1928, and studied further at the Beaux Arts Institute of Design in New York City. He became a naturalized American citizen in 1933.

Mankowski worked as a carver for John Donnelly & Company in the 1930s, a firm that supplied architectural sculpture for a number of Washington, D.C. federal buildings. This included The Four Elements—Earth, Air, Water, Fire (limestone, 1933–1936), a set of larger-than-life allegorical figures for the fifth floor lobby. Hitler, who seems to have planned a state visit to tour the fair, The fair's Hall of Nations featured twenty identical pavilions in attached rows, ten on each side of the Court of Peace, culminating, at the head of the court, with the United States (Federal) Building. Each pavilion featured a colossal statue on its façade and a flagpole for the country's national flag. Mankowski created the colossal statue Shepherd—a "semi-nude male figure carrying sheep on shoulders; two sheep at feet" —for what may have been the Freedom Pavilion. Grover Whalen, president of the New York World's Fair Corporation, had worked hard to secure Germany's participation, and resented LaGuardia's interference. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II, 1942-1945.

After the war, Michigan State University built a new Physics - Mathematics Building (1947-1949). A Modernist, functional building, its austerity was relieved by a bit of whimsy. Professor Thomas H. Osgood, Chair of the Physics Department, selected a number of illustrations from the History of Science, and these were incised into the limestone panels surrounding the building's entrance. It was awarded the 1949 United Clay Mines Prize. The ceramic exhibition traveled to Dallas and Los Angeles. Its obverse featured an Art Deco relief bust of Minerva, Goddess of the Fine Arts, with a pantograph in the foreground, the device used to trace a relief for reduction.

U.S. Capitol The Genius of America pediment (1959-1960), East Portico, U.S. Capitol, carved by Mankowski (after Luigi Persico's 1825-1828 original) As part of the 1949-1950 restoration of the U.S. Capitol, prominent American sculptors were commissioned to create twenty-three relief busts of historic lawmakers for the House Chamber. Mankowski carved nine of the relief busts in marble, modeled by sculptors Gaetano Cecere, Jean de Marco, and Thomas Hudson Jones. The twenty-three relief busts were installed over the doors to the House Chamber.

Lee Lawrie modeled three relief panels for the Senate Chamber, including Courage, depicting a man battling with a serpent. Mankowski carved Courage in marble, 1950, and it was installed over the West Doorway of the Senate Chamber.

Under the supervision of Paul Manship, Mankowski created a replica of the Genius of America pediment for the East Portico of the U.S. Capitol. Luigi Persico had designed and carved the original sculpture group in sandstone, 1825-1828. Carl L. Schmitz recreated the 130-year-old figures in plaster, restoring lost detail, including their eroded faces. These became the models from which Mankowski carved the marble replicas, 1959-1960.

Other works

In 1950, American Export Lines commissioned twin ocean liners from Bethlehem Steel's Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts. Completed in 1951, they were christened SS Constitution and SS Independence, in honor of historic warships that had been built in Massachusetts. Mankowski was commissioned to recreate the warships' figureheads for the liners. The original figurehead of USS Constitution (1897) had been a figure of Hercules, designed and carved by John & Simeon Skillin of Boston. The original figurehead of USS Independence had a been a figure of a Native American chief, possibly Massasoit. Mankowski made life size models of his replica figureheads, but the plan for enlarging them and mounting them on the bows of the liners was abandoned. "The Indian who greets passengers in the foyer was reproduced by sculptor Bruno Mankowski from drawings of the original figurehead intended for the Navy's U.S.S. Independence."

Mankowski created numerous designs for the Steuben Glass Company, notably the etched crystal Buffalo Bowl (1954). His solution was essentially a larger-than-life drawing of the trio, its lines inscribed into the gray marble of library's lobby, then gold leafed. "The portrait busts of Billings, Fletcher, and Garrison, designed by Mr. C. Paul Jennewein, have been chiseled into the marble of the north wall of the lobby by Mr. Bruno Mankowski, an expert carver and an artist in his own right."

Malvina Hoffman modeled, and Mankowski carved in limestone, a roundel relief bust of Henry Clay Frick (1964 or 1965), for the façade of the Frick Fine Arts Building at the University of Pittsburgh.

Exhibitions, honors and awards Mankowski exhibited at the National Academy of Design's annual exhibitions, 1940-1943, 1947-1950, 1956-1963. He exhibited semi-regularly at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts's annual exhibitions, from 1934 to 1954. He exhibited at the Artists for Victory Exhibition, hosted by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in December 1942.

Mankowski was elected to the National Sculpture Society in 1941, and elected a fellow in year. NSS awarded him its 1952 Louis Bennett Prize (for Minerva Medal), and its 1972 Gold Medal. Mankowski was elected an associate member of the National Academy of Design in 1956, and elected an academician in 1968. The Allied Artists of America awarded him its 1960 Lindsay Morris Memorial Prize, Art historian George Gurney interviewed him in preparation for the 1979 exhibition "Sculpture and the Federal Triangle," at the National Museum of American Art.

Mankowski retired to DeBary, Florida in 1980. He died there on July 31, 1990. His only survivor was a nephew.

Selected works Sculptures Seated Female Figure (medium, 1934), height: . Exhibited at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1934. Shepherd (staff?, 1939), Hall of Nations, 1939 New York World's Fair Head of American Working Girl (medium, 1942). Exhibited at Artists for Victory Exhibition, 1942. Pieta (terra cotta, 1949). Winner of the United Clay Mines Prize, 14th Ceramic National Exhibition (1949), Carnegie Museum of Art Hercules (cast stone?, 1950-1951), replica figurehead for SS Constitution Massasoit (cast stone?, 1950-1951), replica figurehead for SS Independence Relief: Lithuanian Flyers Memorial (aluminum and marble, 1957), Lithuania Square, Union Avenue & Hewes Street, Brooklyn, New York City A double portrait of Lithuanian-American pilots Steponas Darius and Stasys Girėnas, who attempted a 1933 trans-Atlantic flight from Brooklyn to Lithuania, but whose plane mysteriously went down over Germany. Intimate Conversation (terra cotta, 1958), height: . Winner of the Ceramic Sculpture Award, Twentieth Ceramic International Exhibition (1959), Syracuse Museum. Young Woman Standing (terra cotta, 1959) Kneeling Nude (Indiana limestone, 1970), height: , Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa, Florida Duckbill Platypus (marble, 1988), Brookgreen Gardens, Murrells Inlet, South Carolina Girl with Book (stone, year), height: , National Academy of Design Museum, New York City Head of a Man - Self-portrait (plaster, year)

Medals New York World's Fair Medal (bronze, 1939), Equitable Life Assurance Company 50th Anniversary Medal of Medallic Art Company a.k.a. Minerva Medal (bronze, 1949). Winner of the National Sculpture Society's 1952 Louis Bennett Prize. Examples at Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Gallery of Art, and other museums. Diamond Jubilee of Electric Light Medal (bronze, 1954) American Folklore Medal (bronze, 1969), National Gallery of Art (ex collection: Corcoran Gallery of Art) Society of Medalists - 79th Issue: features an image of Paul Bunyan on the obverse and Johnny Appleseed on the reverse. George Washington Carver Medal (bronze, 1969), American Negro Commemorative Society Science and Technical Award Medal (bronze, 1972). The obverse is a high relief after Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man. George Gershwin Medal (bronze, 1972)

Paintings Self-Portrait (oil on canvas, 1967), National Academy of Design Museum, New York City

Glass Buffalo Bowl (etched crystal, 1954), Steuben Glass Company