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Nevelson—who would later develop her signature assemblages constructed from wood detritus—was taken with Indelicato’s ornately decorated shoeshine kit. When she complimented him on it, Indelicato informed her he had another at home that he never used: “It’s the most beautiful shoeshine stand in the world.”
Indelicato had ornamented the shoe shine box, stool, customer’s chair, and two footrests by affixing and hanging on them a multihued array of plastic beads, glass costume jewelry, metals, bulbs and other studs, ceramic figurines, and other items. He had painted the wood with floral motifs, and upholstered the seats with patterned material.
Nevelson brought the resplendent shoeshine kit to the attention of Alfred H. Barr Jr., the Director of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), who agreed to display it in MoMA’s lobby during the Christmas season, Nevelson announced to the press that Indelicato’s dazzling assemblage was “subconscious, surrealist art. It is an epic of Mediterranean culture."
Indelicato’s art creation was covered in the New York Times and TIME magazine, and after the museum presentation it was featured in Lord & Taylor’s window display and in a Harper’s Magazine spread advertising new shoes.
Inexplicably, Indelicato’s name was changed to “Joe Milone” in the museum wall text and press release, and in subsequent press coverage. Indelicato’s granddaughter Cherylann said Nevelson deemed his name “too ethnic, too Italian.”
MoMA never purchased Indelicato’s art of encrusted pieces; he was quoted saying his art was not for sale, “not even for a million dollars.” It was long presumed lost until it surfaced in 2014 at an auction house in New Jersey, where it was purchased by local antiques dealer Pat O’Shea. She in turn sold the piece to the Fenimore Art Museum in spite of having a higher offer from a private collector, as she felt strongly that Indelicato’s masterpiece “belongs in a museum.”
— Joseph Sciorra
Artist
Giovanni Indelicato
(1887 - 1965)
Shoe Shine Stand
Datec. 1930-1942
DimensionsOverall (a): 16 × 14 1/4 × 33 1/2 × 13 3/4 in. (40.6 × 36.2 × 85.1 × 34.9 cm)
Overall (b): 42 × 23 in. (106.7 × 58.4 cm)
Overall (c1): 5 1/2 × 6 1/4 × 13 1/2 in. (14 × 15.9 × 34.3 cm)
Overall (c2): 5 × 2 1/4 × 5 in. (12.7 × 5.7 × 12.7 cm)
Overall (d): 20 1/2 × 10 1/4 × 12 in. (52.1 × 26 × 30.5 cm)
Object numberN0001.2014a-e
Credit LineCollection of the Fenimore Art Museum. Museum Purchase
Photograph by Richard Walker
Label TextIn the fall of 1942, sculptor Louise Nevelson met Manhattan bootblack Giovanni Indelicato, who had emigrated from the Sicilian city of Sciacca in 1910 at the age of 23. Indelicato had owned a grocery store during the 1920s, was a presser in a garment factory, and became a bootblack after a work-related injury. Nevelson—who would later develop her signature assemblages constructed from wood detritus—was taken with Indelicato’s ornately decorated shoeshine kit. When she complimented him on it, Indelicato informed her he had another at home that he never used: “It’s the most beautiful shoeshine stand in the world.”
Indelicato had ornamented the shoe shine box, stool, customer’s chair, and two footrests by affixing and hanging on them a multihued array of plastic beads, glass costume jewelry, metals, bulbs and other studs, ceramic figurines, and other items. He had painted the wood with floral motifs, and upholstered the seats with patterned material.
Nevelson brought the resplendent shoeshine kit to the attention of Alfred H. Barr Jr., the Director of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), who agreed to display it in MoMA’s lobby during the Christmas season, Nevelson announced to the press that Indelicato’s dazzling assemblage was “subconscious, surrealist art. It is an epic of Mediterranean culture."
Indelicato’s art creation was covered in the New York Times and TIME magazine, and after the museum presentation it was featured in Lord & Taylor’s window display and in a Harper’s Magazine spread advertising new shoes.
Inexplicably, Indelicato’s name was changed to “Joe Milone” in the museum wall text and press release, and in subsequent press coverage. Indelicato’s granddaughter Cherylann said Nevelson deemed his name “too ethnic, too Italian.”
MoMA never purchased Indelicato’s art of encrusted pieces; he was quoted saying his art was not for sale, “not even for a million dollars.” It was long presumed lost until it surfaced in 2014 at an auction house in New Jersey, where it was purchased by local antiques dealer Pat O’Shea. She in turn sold the piece to the Fenimore Art Museum in spite of having a higher offer from a private collector, as she felt strongly that Indelicato’s masterpiece “belongs in a museum.”
— Joseph Sciorra
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