Alfeo Faggi (1885-1966) Collection, 1914-1950

Sculptor, lecturer and author, Alfeo Faggi was born in Italy in 1885 and began his formal studies at the age of 13, attending the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence. Coming to the United States in 1913, he married Chicagoan Beatrice Butler, an accomplished musician whom he had known in Florence. Faggi received portrait commissions for a number of prominent women in Chicago society including Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson, Mrs. Chauncey-Blair and Mrs. William Vaughn Moody. In 1913 his first American exhibition was held in Chicago at the Henry Reinhardt Gallery. In 1916 Mrs. Frank R. Lillie commissioned Stations of the Cross, a bas-relief executed for the Church of St. Thomas the Apostle. After serving in the U.S. Army 1916-1919, he returned to the United States to become an American citizen. He and his family moved to Woodstock, NY, in 1923 where he lived until his death in 1966.

Faggi exhibited his work in numerous exhibitions, including the Arts Club, Chicago, 1920; the Bourgeois Gallery, New York, 1921; the Chester Johnson Galleries, Chicago, 1926; Ferargil Gallery, New York, 1930; and the Art Institute, 1927. Some of his best-known works are the head of Yone Noguchi, a bronze portrait bust; Mother and Babe; the war monument Pieta; and Walt Whitman, a highly controversial nude statue completed in 1921.

The collection contains correspondence between Faggi and Walter Brewster, exhibition catalogs, articles and photographs of Faggi's work.

Items are arranged alphabetically by subject type and chronologically within each subject.

• Names
  • Faggi, Alfeo, 1885-1966.
  • Faggi, Alfeo, 1885-1966--Correspondence.
  • Brewster, Walter Stanton, 1872-1954--Correspondence.
• Subject
  • Sculpture, American--Illinois--Chicago--20th century--Sources.
  • Sculptors--Illinois--Chicago--Archives.

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Works by Faggi are held in the permanent collections of the Department of American Art and the Department of Prints and Drawings.

Works by Faggi are held in the permanent collections of the Department of American Art and the Department of Prints and Drawings.

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Alfeo Faggi Collection, Ryerson and Burnham Art and Architecture Archives, The Art Institute of Chicago.

The date and circumstances of its acquisition are unknown.

The collection was processed by staff of the Ryerson and Burnham Archives in 1998. This finding aid was revised and expanded by Annemarie van Roessel in 2002.

This collection was transferred from the Registrar's Office to the Ryerson and Burnham Archives in 1987.