Ermelindo Eduardo Ardolino (November 20, 1883 – April 12, 1945), known as Edward Ardolino was an Italian-born American stone carver and architectural sculptor of the early twentieth century. He was the most prominent member of the Ardolino family of stone carvers. He worked with leading architects and sculptors, including architect Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue and sculptor Lee Lawrie. Ardolino participated in at least nine Goodhue-Lawrie collaborations including the Los Angeles Public Library and the Nebraska State Capitol. His carvings adorn a significant number of important public and private buildings and monuments, including four buildings in the Federal Triangle of Washington, D.C.
Background
Ardolino was born into a long line of stone carvers on November 20, 1883, in Torre Le Nocelle, Province of Avellino, Italy. On his 1898 immigration, when he was 14, he identified himself as a sculptor. He was joining his older brother Charles (Clamanzio Celestino) Ardolino, who was a stone carver in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1900, the two brothers established a company, Ardolino Brothers, documented on their business letterhead. They contracted with others, including cousin Ralph (Angelo Raffaele) Ardolino, to assist in fulfilling their commissions.
In 1907, Edward Ardolino married Nicolina de Cristofaro, and together they had four children. Ardolino moved the family frequently as his early career took him throughout the northeastern United States, the Midwest and Canada. In the 1920s, he settled his family in Metuchen, New Jersey.
From 1914 to 1916, Edward assumed responsibility for the company when Charles went abroad to create fountains for their hometown's first public water system. In 1916, Ardolino Brothers formed a partnership with Giuseppe and Raffaele Menconi of Menconi Brothers of New York City under the name Menconi and Ardolino Brothers. They maintained offices in New York, Boston, Chicago and Toronto. In 1920, Edward, acting on his own, formed another partnership called Ricci, Ardolino and Di Lorenzo.
The following year Edward dissolved his business relationship with his brother Charles and founded his own company, Edward Ardolino, Inc., with offices in New York City and Philadelphia. Charles operated under the original company name Ardolino Brothers in conjunction with his son Angelo and his father John until his passing in 1926.
Between 1929 and 1931, Edward Ardolino designed, created and installed a marble and bronze war memorial for his town of birth. The monument incorporates a bronze figure of Winged Victory of Samothrace. In 2013, the war monument was restored with a grant from the Italian government.
Edward Ardolino died on April 12, 1945, in Metuchen, New Jersey.
Career
Early in his career Ardolino worked with leading American architects and sculptors. He had a number of commissions in conjunction with Carrère and Hastings, who made their mark in 1911 with their design for the New York Public Library.
Other early commissions included joint projects of the well-respected architect Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue and sculptor Lee Lawrie. Ardolino executed carvings for them in styles ranging from Gothic Revival, such as the West Point Chapel, to what became known as Art Deco, exemplified by the Los Angeles Public Library and the Nebraska State Capitol. The latter two are arguably the most innovative works of Goodhue's career and were ranked in the top 120 architectural sites in a recent study of America's favorite buildings.
Goodhue publicly advocated for Ardolino to win contracts on his projects, saying he had "proved his ability to grasp and execute in stone the character desired by Mr. Lawrie." After Goodhue's death in 1924, Ardolino continued to work with Lawrie, the recipient of prestigious architectural and sculptural awards. Most of the Goodhue and Lawrie collaborations fulfilled in conjunction with Ardolino were invited into historic registers or achieved landmark status.
Goodhue and Lawrie Projects
West Point Chapel (1906-1910), West Point, NY
Saint Thomas Church, (reredos, initiated in 1918) (stone cross, completed in 1923) New York, NY Church of St. Vincent Ferrer (1914-1918, interior; 1919, statue, Porta Coeli), New York, NY Trinity English Lutheran Church (designed in 1923), Fort Wayne, Indiana Los Angeles Public Library (1924-1926), Los Angeles, California Rockefeller Chapel (1925-1928), University of Chicago Christ Church Cranbrook (1925-1929), Bloomfield Hills, Michigan Church of the Heavenly Rest, (1926-1929; reredos completed in 1938) New York, NY Nebraska State Capitol (1922-1934), Lincoln, Nebraska