Beginnings

Born to a poor shoemaker in Andretta, Italy, Alfonso Iannelli studied the techniques of the travelling artists who stayed at his parent's small inn. His father then set off alone for America to build a new life for the family. And in 1898, Iannelli, his mother and three brothers finally joined him in Newark, New Jersey, where Alfonso was soon apprenticed to a jeweler and by 1900, to the famous sculptor, Gutzon Borglum. He modelled figures for the new Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan before winning a scholarship to New York's Art Students' League. By eighteen, Iannelli had moved west to Cincinnati and a job in a lithography company. Not two years later, he again headed west in search of the American Indians he'd dreamed of since his boyhood in Italy, eventually settling in Los Angeles.

Orpheum Posters 1910 - 1915

European modernism influenced Alfonso Iannelli's vocabulary of architecturally expressing the human figure. He painted over one hundred lobby showcards for Los Angeles' Orpheum Theater, abstracting each vaudeville act into geometric bursts of color and shape.

At twenty-two years old, Iannelli had already mastered a graphic and sculptural style in his commercial work that had yet to be utilized in other American forms of fine art. Soon Frank Lloyd Wright was aware of his remarkable talent and invited him to Chicago for a collaboration that was to transform Twentieth Century architecture.

Midway Gardens 1914

Working with Frank Lloyd Wright inspired Iannelli to create sculpture that was totally integrated into a cohesive, organic architectural artwork. Midway Gardens was Wright's masterpiece of public architecture, a three acre compound that integrated music, art and nightlife. He saw Iannelli as a talented interpreter of his design language and a worthy partner to Richard Bock, his usual sculptor.

Wright passed off all the sculpture as his own in the ensuing publicity, crushing Iannelli and depriving him of any credit in what could have been his triumphant Chicago debut. When Wright later asked him to create the sculpture for his Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, Iannelli refused to ever again work for America's greatest architect.

1915 -1920

After sculpting for Wright, Iannelli moved permanently to Illinois and began working for architects Purcell and Elmslie, creating monumental sculpture for Sioux City's courthouse, the Prairie School's largest public building. Because he wasn't a licensed architect, Iannelli then began a working relationship with architect Barry Byrne, a former draftsman in Wright's studio. Their association allowed him to design complete interior schemes that propelled Prairie decor into a more modernist direction.

1920 -1930

After establishing a commercial design studio in Park Ridge, Iannelli began teaching industrial design at Hull House and the Art Institute of Chicago. He was featured in a group show at the Art Institute in 1922, where he exhibited decorative items and drawings of room designs. His modernist lamps, small sculptures and furnishings were so well received that the museum offered him a solo exhibition there in late 1925. This showcased a large collection of his sculptures, fountains, designs for stained glass windows and a stunning drawing of his proposed tomb for Louis Sullivan, the recently deceased godfather of the Chicago School.

His collaboration with Barry Byrne led to important commissions designing sculptures and stained glass windows for churches throughout the Midwest. His modernist interpretations of Biblical subjects updated religious symbolism and transformed them into a contemporary language.

Consumer Products

Iannelli Studios grew rapidly with many new industrial and decorative clients. Artisans were hired to help him execute the models needed for consumer products and the decorative installations for movie theaters and retail exhibits. He had always insisted on complete control of advertising, logos and branding for any client who came to him. And his skill at integrating all of the aesthetics made his finished product that much easier to market. His higher profile also made the Iannelli name into its own brand and Sunbeam, Eversharp, Oster and other manufacturers used it in their advertising to promote their advanced styling.Ê

1930 -1940

His design career included extensive work for Chicago's 1933 World's Fair where he was called upon to design an important entrance to Raymond Hood's enormous Electrical Group pavilion. His sculptural friezes and streamlined fa'ade for the 'Radio' entrance ranked with the work of the fair's director of sculpture, Lee Lawrie. He also designed, along with architect Charles Pope, the 'Thermometer Tower' for Havoline Oil Company and a spectacular, unbuilt design for Goodyear Tire and Rubber. Other exhibit designs for the Enchanted Island amusement area, Elgin Watches and Wahl Eversharp made Iannelli's work for A Century of Progress a watershed event for his firm. The fair gave Iannelli his highest profile commissions and largest audience and his name was now known throughout the country. Iannelli Studios soon became the most successful commercial art firm in Chicago.

1940 - 1960

Iannelli's patriotic fervor inspired his designs for wartime housing and antiwar public sculptures which were never built. He resumed his commercial approach with a simplified sense of style, perfectly in tune with modern tastes. His largest sculptural commission, and one of his last, was the monumental Rock of Gibralter relief on the face of the Prudential building, Chicago's tallest skyscraper.

Alfonso Iannelli came to Chicago in 1914 to sculpt Frank Lloyd Wright's Sprite minarets atop Midway Gardens. The Art Institute of Chicago included his applied and industrial art designs in several exhibitions and gave him a one-man show in 1925.

His attempts to start programs at Hull House and the Art Institute for the teaching of industrial art finally found fruition in Laszlo Moholy-Nagy's curriculum at the New Bauhaus. As an architect, sculptor, industrial designer and teacher, Iannelli's influence on graphic and applied art gave a fresh, modernist look to old forms and provided employment to several generations of commercial artists.