Robert Mihaly

Robert Aaron Mihaly (born January 8, 1967) is an American stone sculptor, conceptual artist, and painter.

Early life Mihaly was born in Akron, Ohio. Largely self-educated, he dropped out of Kent State University and moved to North Carolina.

Career At the age of 21, he was awarded $10,000 in a national college entrepreneur contest. His business plan to design and sell artistic architectural ornaments was selected from 600 other proposals. during which Mihaly attempted to transform a Vermont marble block into an angel. The cathedral came to see the stone and scaffolding as an eyesore and safety hazard, and removed the structure, leaving Mihaly unable to work. Mihaly unsuccessfully sued the cathedral in small-claims court for breach of contract.

In 2002, Duke University commissioned Mihaly for the first gargoyles at Duke since the construction of the Gothic-styled West Campus, The Gothic west campus has more than 100 gargoyles perched upon buildings, but Mihaly's two new sculptures did not entertain the wealthy donors they were intended to honor, gargoyles, an elaborate gothic mausoleum, and four tractor-trailer loads of stonework that he carved for a miniature Renaissance villa.

Client Elizabeth Edwards and her husband, Senator John Edwards, commissioned Mihaly to carve the headstone of their deceased son, Wade, out of a 24,000 pound block of Vermont marble. Mihaly also designed the monument in Historic Oakwood Cemetery for Edwards after her death in 2010 from breast cancer.

Conceptual art

During the March 7, 2009 opening of Mihaly's Duke University solo exhibit at the Louise Jones Brown Gallery, A Pantheon of Modern Gods: An Anthropological Expedition into Corridors of Power, Mihaly paced the gallery, lecturing with a small sculpture entitled Cherub cradled in his arms, in front of visitors. All the works in the exhibition were accompanied by quotations.

The Gallery manager Rachel Pea described the art as "edgy" and "one of the more in-your-face sort of exhibits" since it challenges the viewer's ideas on the fabric of society: war, politics, money and religion.

Mihaly's work "conveys illuminating social commentary" about "frightening political possibilities". The castle, located on Red Mountain in Rougemont, North Carolina, features onion domes like Eastern Orthodox churches and oxidized copper cupolas.

Much rumor and lore has been built around the castle and its creator, Robert Mihaly. Mihaly referenced the rumor about the death of his wife in a televised news story, acknowledging that he is not a widower.