Rinaldo Paluzzi

After serving in the U.S. Navy during WWII, he was a student at the John Herron School of Art (now part of Indiana University) from 1948 to 1950. He then left to attend the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome Italy until the end of 1951. After returning to Herron, he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1953. He remained at the school, where he was awarded a Master of Fine Arts in 1957.

The following is from the Herron Chronicle (published in 2003).

Twenty-seven students received their diplomas and degrees at commencement on June 9, 1957. One of the graduates in attendance was Rinalo (Randy) Paluzzi who received his MFA that day and a top $2,000 Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation grant. He was just as surprised as anyone that such honors were coming to him, considering that a mere eight years before he had been at home in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, discharged from the Navy, with no high school diploma, no clear prospects, and no interest in art at all. His elder brother Guarino had just transferred to Herron, and he suggested that Randy use his G.I. Bill and follow him there. Paluzzi recalled that his first drawings in Harry Davis' class were "terrible." Since the Tiffany grant could be used without restrictions, Paluzzi decided to spend it in Italy, parceling it out to last a full year. Aiming to take his wife, former classmate Claudine Kelsey, and his three infant daughters along, and realizing the grant would not stretch that far, he spent the summer of 1957 working 12-hour shifts driving a mail truck to raise another $1,000. The Paluzzis left for Rome on October 2.[2]

Upon their return to Greensburg, a local gallery devoted a showing in Indianapolis to all 65 paintings he had finished during that year away.

He is best known in the United States for Totem a 32 x 5 x 5 foot sculpture located in Celebration Plaza, White River State Park, Indianapolis, Indiana. Made of stainless steel, it is a triangular-shaped vertical tube with triangular and trapezoidal cut-outs in the steel. It was constructed in 1982, and sits centered atop a concrete circle, 40 feet in diameter, with a sundial face.

"Vertical Construction" 1959

According to his obituary in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, he was “internationally known for his artistic talents and his paintings and sculptures are on display in Amsterdam. Paris, Spain, Switzerland, California and Indiana.”[3]

• Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, California.[4]
• Carnegie Museum of Art Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.[5]
• Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis.[6]
• Evansville Museum, Evansville, Indiana.[7]
• Westmoreland Museum of American Art, Greensburg, Pennsylvania.[8]
• Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, Tennessee.
• Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana.[9]
• Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden at the Smithsonian[10]
• Museo de Art Contemporaneo Union Fenosa, La Coruña, Spain
• Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois [11]
• Fundación Juan March, Madrid
• Indiana State University, Terre Haute, IN[12]

• Smithsonian's Save Outdoor Sculpture! survey of "Totem"
• A sketch of "Totem" acquired by the Indianapolis Museum of Art.
• "Rinaldo Paluzzi: El humanista constructivo"
• "Rinaldo Paluzzi" film by Galder Arriaga"
• "Resultados de la búsqueda"
• "El Travajo de La Visible"