Pietro Lazzari

Who was Pietro Lazzari?

Pietro Lazzari was an Italian-American artist and sculptor. He is known for his sculptures, paintings, illustrations and printmaking.

Pietro Lazzari received his formal education from the Ornamental School of Rome. After the end of the First World War, Lazzari joined the Italian Futurist movement and exhibited with such artists as Giacomo Balla and Gino Severini. He then moved to Paris for several years before returning to Rome where his first solo exhibition was held at the Theatre of the Independents.

With the rise of Fascism, Lazzari left Italy for New York in 1925. In the following year he was one of nine European artists who contributed to an important exhibition at the New Gallery. Other participating artists included Pablo Picasso, Pascin and Amedeo Modigliani.

During the era of the Great Depression Lazzari became an American citizen and did commissions for the Works Progress Administration including murals and sculptures. He also participated in the influential Abstract Art in America exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

In the early 1940s Pietro Lazzari moved permanently to Washington D.C. where he established his studio tand participated in the World War II National Artists for Victory exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. During the following years Lazzari was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship and received commissions for bronze portraits of Pope Paul VI and Eleanor Roosevelt.