Clement Renzi


Clement Renzi was an American sculptor whose figurative bronze and terra cotta works depict people and their relationships, and animals. He is best known in California's Central Valley, where his work remains popular with collectors, and is placed in over sixty business and other public venues, primarily in that region.

Childhood and family

Clement Renzi was the third of seven children born to Clemente Renzi and Luisa Guastaferro. The couple migrated from New Jersey to Farmersville, California, having heard that the town resembled Clemente's native village of Dugenta, Italy.

Beginnings as a Sculptor

Clement Renzi's first drawing, at about age 7, depicted a cow on his family's farm. He resolved to become a sculptor during a family trip to San Francisco's Palace of the Legion of Honor. During that visit, he encountered a sculpture of by Auguste Rodin and had difficulty keeping his hands off them, despite admonitions of a security guard.
At the end of World War II, while serving as a naval officer in Hawaii, Renzi worked in a lumberyard. He worked there under an ex-art instructor and began to experiment with carving teak, mahogany and other tropical wood.
Later, while at U.C. Berkeley studying business administration through the G.I. Bill, he took art classes with Jacques Schnier and Richard O'Hanlon. A fellow student urged him to attend a lecture by Henry Schaefer-Simmern, who was a professor of Art Education there. The lecture was an epiphany for Renzi, who said, "It was just like I had walked into daylight from darkness."
"It was that kind of an experience and it had a profound effect on me. Here was Henry saying that art cannot be imposed upon you. You have to make your own judgments. I had thought that the teacher alone played that part and made all the judgments, but Henry said, 'No, you are perfectly free to do it your own way. The most important thing is that you do what you can do, in the way that you feel it, and the way you can express it. It has perfect validity as a work of art when you do it your own way.' That enormous sense of freedom gave me an exciting license to advance along my own path."
Renzi enrolled as a charter member of Schaefer-Simmern's Institute of Art Education and continued his studies there for five years. He later said that Schaefer-Simmern provided a “course to guide my whole life work.”
Although Renzi experimented with drawing, painted needlework, mosaic, and block printing, Schaefer-Simmern observed that his work in all media often resembled statues. He encouraged Renzi to pursue sculpture and helped get his first major commissioned project, the Fourteen Stations of the Cross, for a Christian Brothers retreat center in St. Helena, California.
In 1950, Renzi married Dorothy Ohannesian, a classically trained singer from Fresno, California.
In 1954–55, Dorothy studied singing in Vienna through an Alfred Hertz Master's Fellowship from UC Berkeley. During this time, Clement attended Vienna's Academy of Applied art, with a special focus on block printing. The couple also studied in Paris.

New York

Soon after their return to the United States, Clement and Dorothy moved to New York City to accommodate Dorothy's recording contract with MGM records. In 1956, Renzi was given a temporary workspace at New York's Sculpture Center. Clement offered a large tapestry, Eat, Drink and Be Merry, for sale at the gallery at an audaciously high price, not fully wanting to part with it. When, to his surprise, the work was sold, Dorthy encouraged Clem to devote himself full-time to his sculpture. He participated in several group shows at Sculpture Center and held a one-man exhibit there in 1960.
In a brochure for the 1960 exhibit, Sculpture Center's founder Dorothea Denslow commented, “These little people with their long noses, big eyes, and chubby figures live in a far-away land. They are friendly, warm and at peace with themselves, enjoying their unimportant happy moments. We do not know them or their country, but Renzi does, as you can readily see by this show. Through his sculpture, we watch them as they work and play in close harmony, concerned only with the miracles of their simple world.”

Fresno, California

In 1963 the couple moved to Dorothy's hometown of Fresno, to raise their daughter in a quieter environment. Renzi's first commission was for a large bronze, The Visit. Located on the north end of Fresno's downtown pedestrian mall, it depicts two women in conversation.
Renzi taught in the art department at Fresno State College for three years, but left when it seemed to be taking too much attention from his work. Renzi had built a studio in his back yard in Fresno's Fig Garden neighborhood, and travelled periodically to cast his larger bronze works through the lost wax process in Verona, Italy; Bergamo, Italy; Madrid, Spain; and Mexico City. In more recent years, as costs rose abroad, he settled into a working relationship with local foundryman Lester Harries. His terra cotta works, made from locally derived clay, were often cast in a kiln on the premises of his home. Most of the completed works were unique or cast in editions of two or three.

In his later years, Renzi continued to receive almost uninterrupted commissions for large bronzes for area hospitals, banks, churches, schools, colleges, the Fresno library, entertainment centers, civic buildings, parks, malls and businesses. In addition, he produced hundreds of smaller works, which he sold from his home and through local galleries. He also continued to offer works through the Lillian Kornbluth gallery in Fairlawn, New Jersey; the William Beattie Gallery in Chicago, and Sculpture Center in New York City.

Controversy about ''Brotherhood of Man''

In 1969, one of Renzi's sculptures, Brotherhood of Man, drew attention to his work when a group unsuccessfully contested its placement at Fresno's new courthouse, asserting that its subject matter violated the separation of church and state.

Style

Renzi's style sometimes resembles the work of Ernst Barlach, reflecting the influence of German expressionism in his training, and has also been compared to folk art. However, Renzi did not identify with any particular style or movement and considered the character of his work to have evolved through an introspective, self-directed process of trial and error.
Renzi's early work often featured tall, slender forms. In the early 60's his sculptures could be characterized as “fat and flat”. Later works assumed a more rounded, friendly aspect with cherubic children making a frequent appearance, although he also experimented with other kinds of forms, such as a series of bird-like boats with abstract human passengers.

Legacy

Although Renzi's art was well received by critics and collectors during his New York years, and he continued to market smaller pieces through galleries in the New York and Chicago areas, he later gave little attention to promoting his work in major urban centers. He is best known in Fresno and its surrounding communities.

Exhibitions

One-man exhibitions

  1. Media Center, San Joaquin Memorial High School, Fresno, California
  2. Hiebert Library, Fresno Pacific University, Fresno, California
  1. Modesto, California
  2. Laguna Hills, California
  1. University Picadilly, Fresno, California
  2. Panther Creek Shopping Center, Woodlands, Texas.
Other public works by Renzi :
  1. Fresno County Office of Education, Fresno, California
1998 # Kremen School of Education and Development, Fresno, California

Awards