Isidore Konti

Who was Isidore Konti?

Isidore Konti was a Vienna-born sculptor. He began formal art studies at the age of 16 when he entered the Imperial Academy in Vienna where he studied under Edmund von Hellmer. In 1886 he won a scholarship that allowed him to study in Rome for two years. While there he developed a love of Renaissance art that was to affect the nature of his mature sculpture. Upon returning to Austria, Konti worked as an architectural modeler.

In 1890, 1891 or 1892 Konti moved, permanently as it turned out, to America, there going straight to Chicago where he began working on sculptural decorations for the World's Columbian Exposition. When the work there was completed, he moved to New York City and commenced working as an assistant for fellow Austrian expatriate Karl Bitter. In 1900, for the exposition in Buffalo, New York, in 1904 for the one in St. Louis and for the Panama Pacific Exposition in San Francisco in 1915, Konti's skills as a modeler kept him in much demand. In 1906 he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member and became a full Academician in 1909.

Konti died in Yonkers, New York on January 11, 1938.