Rinaldo Paluzzi

Rinaldo Paluzzi (May 16, 1927 – March 27, 2013) was an American-Spanish Abstract Art and Geometric abstraction painter and sculptor in the post-World War II era. He was born in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, and died in Madrid, Spain.

Paluzzi’s works are in a number of permanent collections, from the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden at the Smithsonian to the Union Fenosa Museum of Contemporary Art in Coruna, Spain.

Education and works After serving in the U.S. Navy during WWII, he was a student at the John Herron School of Art (now part of Indiana University) from 1948 to 1950. He then left to attend the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome, Italy, until the end of 1951. After returning to Herron, he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1953. He remained at the school, where he was awarded a Master of Fine Arts in 1957.

The following is from the Herron Chronicle (published in 2003).

Upon their return to Greensburg, a local gallery devoted a showing in Indianapolis to all 65 paintings he had finished during that year away.

He is best known in the United States for Totem, a sculpture located in Celebration Plaza, White River State Park, Indianapolis, Indiana. Made of stainless steel, it is a triangular-shaped vertical tube with triangular and trapezoidal cut-outs in the steel. It was constructed in 1982, and sits centered atop a concrete circle, 40 feet in diameter, with a sundial face.

According to his obituary in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, he was "internationally known for his artistic talents and his paintings and sculptures are on display in Amsterdam. Paris, Spain, Switzerland, California and Indiana."

Exhibitions Most recent individual exhibitions 1998 Fundación Caja de Granada, Sala Triunfo, Granada. Carnegie Museum of Art Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis. Evansville Museum, Evansville, Indiana. Westmoreland Museum of American Art, Greensburg, Pennsylvania. Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, Tennessee. Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden at the Smithsonian Museo de Art Contemporaneo Union Fenosa, La Coruña, Spain Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois Fundación Juan March, Madrid Indiana State University, Terre Haute, IN