Raffaele Menconi
Quick Facts
Biography
Raffaele Menconi (1877 — 1942) was an Italian sculptor who established a practice in New York City with his brother Giuseppe (Joseph). Menconi realised the bronze architectural sculptures and fittings for a generation of Beaux-Arts architects, such as Carrère and Hastings; Menconi's bronze flagpole bases for the Fifth Avenue front of the New York Public Library (1912, illustrated) are particularly prominent. Another pair of bronze flagpole bases by Menconi, showing an American eagle and representations of the four seasons, to designs of Egerton Swartwout, stand before the Missouri State Capitol. His work also appears on the Readers' Digest building in Chappaqua New York, and in the Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Boston.
He married Josephine Zampieri; their son, Ralph J. Menconi (1915–1972), who apprenticed in his father's New York studio, was also a well-known sculptor and medalist. The Menconi Family lived in an Italianate house designed by Mr. Menconi in Hastings-on-Hudson NY for many years.