While some artists, such as Damien Hurst (b. 1965) and Tracy Emin (b. 1963), actively seek all the hype they can pump out of the media circus, others choose to keep an almost too minimal profile. The 20th century art scene is littered with mega-talent, which, outside a certain framework, is by-and-large not known. One such artisan was Michael Gaspard Rizzello, OBE, who much preferred just to beaver away than court publicity. While he does indeed get entries in such standard reference books as James Mackay’s indispensable The Dictionary of Sculptors in Bronze (published by the Antique Collectors’ Club), David Buckman’s The Dictionary of Artists in Britain since 1945 (Art Dictionaries Ltd) and Who’s Who in Art (Hilmarton Manor Press), it was not until his daughter mounted a major retrospective exhibition at the Mall Galleries, London in April this year, that the public had the opportunity of fully appreciating Rizzello’s remarkable breadth of talent.

Michael was born in London on April 2, 1926, the youngest son of Arthur Marius Rizzello, an Italian tailor who moved to England in the mid-1920s, via Marseilles. Educated at the Oratory Central Boys’ School, Chelsea, Michael’s artistic bent was certainly evident from his early teens coming as he did from a strong Catholic family, church may have been obligatory, but he amused himself during the service by discreetly making little figure models in plasticine! Leaving school at fifteen he spent two years studying at Willesden School of Art before joining the army. After seeing service in India and the Far East and reaching the rank of lieutenant, he was demobbed in January 1948. It was then a case of deciding which path he would take professionally. He had two significant aptitudes singing and drawing. It was the latter that pulled most and in 1947 he became a student at London’s Royal College of Art, where his tutors included Frank Dobson (1886-1963) and John Rattenbury Skeaping (1901-1980). By the time of his graduation in 1950, he had received a drawing prize and the RCA’s major travelling scholarship, which enabled him to spend two years studying the Old Masters in France and Italy. His striking composition ‘Mother and Child’ also brought him the coveted Prix de Rome for Sculpture, which delivered him the opportunity to attend the British School at Rome (in Italian: Accademia Britannica di Archeolgia, Storia e Belle Arti).

Some years after his marriage in 1950 to Sheila Semple Maguire, herself a gifted artist, Michael bought the already established Penn Studios in Hampstead in north London. It was hardly boom time in 1950s Britain and anticipated commissions were not forthcoming, so to make ends meet he made hundreds of wax heads for Madame Tussaud's. However, in July 1954 he ‘struck gold’ when he had a meeting with Sir Lionel Thompson, Deputy Master of the Royal Mint. Impressed by Michael’s undoubted skills, Thompson asked him to produce designs for a Badge of Honour for Mauritius and a public seal for the Southern Cameroons. Revealing a sculptor instinctively gifted at producing low relief images, this initial project brought about a congenial relationship between the Mint and the artisan that was to span fifty years. Although Michael went on to design coins and medals for other companies such as Paramount, Spink & Son and American Express, it was the Royal Mint for whom he worked most. His remarkable output included the 1970 five dollar coin for St Vincent and St Kitts, numerous commemorative coins such as those marking the independence of Bahrain (1971) and Ghana (1981), while medals take in the 900th anniversary of Westminster Abbey (1965) and the Prince of Wales’ Investiture (1969). In 1994 he designed the £2 coin marking the 50th Anniversary of the United Nations and created the new Conspicuous Gallantry Cross for the Ministry of Defence, a medal second only to the Victoria Cross. Having produced such work for more than one hundred countries, it comes as little surprise that it is generally accepted that Michael Rizzello is one of the most accomplished numismatic artists of the second half of the twentieth century.

While his numismatic designs, which literally run into thousands, are impressive in their own right, his output of sculptures is equally extraordinary. Records show over 500 different pieces were created, ranging from miniature figures of explorers produced for the Royal Geographic Society to compositions over seven feet tall. Such output could only, of course, be achieved by unremitting labour. Not only did this mean 356 days a year, including Christmas morning, but in the 1960s and 1970s when he was most active with coin and medal production, it involved burning the midnight oil. And what of holidays? Whatever the job in progress, it went, too for example, he would take a medal that was half-finished in plasticine on a large piece of glass so that it could be completed.

Some indication of just how much of a workaholic Michael was, can be gleaned from the bizarre incident that happened when he was working on the major commission for the Atlantic States Bank, Naples, Florida. To labour on the models for the over life-size bronzes of Spanish explorer Ponce de Len (c. 1460-1521) and the American Seminole Indian Osceola (1803-1838), Michael set up scaffolding towers in his studio with boards running from each so that he could work simultaneously on both figures. One day he was leaping between them and fell twelve feet, breaking his neck! Within three months, despite sporting a neck brace and one hand being numb, he was back constructing the figures. Injuries, while not usually quite so dramatic as this, were all part of the job, and one that he always remained philosophical about, pronouncing: “It’s amazing what you can adapt to”.

And work certainly did not stop outside the studio environment. He was passionate about drawing and would always be studying people in the street perhaps transfixed by subtleties like the shape of a head. He has left a large anthology of meticulous drawings, some being pages of just studies of hands or feet. In fact, he was fascinated by anatomy and whenever constructing a model, whether animal, vegetable or mineral would refer back all the time to anatomical studies, right down to the skeleton. His philosophy was that it had to be correct from the inside out.

Despite all his own creative output, Michael somehow still found time to give others that most precious of commodities time! Apart from being Vice President of the Royal Society of British Sculptors from 1964-69 and its President from 1976-81, the President of the Society of Portrait Sculptors between 1968-73, an active member of the Reform Club (in the Club’s smoking room sits Rizzello’s bust of Lloyd George), he also managed to teach.

Although portrait sculpture ran throughout his career there are examples going back to the early 1950s, with his first public sculpture, the imposing eight foot tall statue of Lloyd George, being unveiled in 1960 in Cardiff’s Cathay Park it was in 1976 when he moved to Putney in London that he truly developed this side of his abilities. The Victorian house, which had undergone a radical 1960s conversion by the Spanish sculptor Jos Alberdi (b. 1922), had a massive detached sculpture studio in the back garden. Designed by Sir Basil Spence, best known for his creation of Coventry Cathedral, the space was, certainly up to the 1980s, considered to be the largest and best private studio built in London since the war. Michael made this wonderful space a ‘bottega’ in the traditional sense, that is, an atelier in which all sorts of commissions were tackled and where he passed on his methodology to students and assistants. From here he worked joyfully, his stunning operatic voice resonating around the soaring studio, on important commissions such as the Sir Thomas Beecham bust (1979), now housed at London’s Royal Opera House, Nelson Mandela for the Headquarters of the ANC in South Africa and the TUC in London, ‘Dancer with Ribbons’ outside the London’s Plaza, Oxford Street, and the Queen Mother Memorial roundel in St George’s Chapel, Windsor. Then there were the endearing animals, such as hares and otters. He was a frequent visitor to London Zoo and among the sketches he made there are ones of Guy the gorilla and lions.

As I have already mentioned Michael Rizzello had tremendous passion for his work, so much so that even towards the end of his life he embarked upon one of his most ambitious projects. Commissioned by the novelist Felix Dennis for his impressive garden, ‘The Battle of Thermopylae’ comprises five larger than life figures. Michael was still working on the project just weeks before he died on 28 September 2004 and while not completed, the concluding stages are being finalised by the accomplished sculptor John Ravera (b. 1941), a past president of the Royal Society of British Sculptors. Now being cast in bronze by Hampshire-based Morris Singer, the UK’s oldest established (1848) fine art founders, it is anticipated that the group will be in situ early next year. Adding to his impressive legacy, this monumental work represents a fitting memorial to Michael a quiet, kind, unpretentious, multi-talented, highly innovative man, who can be hailed as a true master of his craft.

Prices
Michael Rizzello’s work has resided mainly in private collections and therefore rarely come up for sale at auction, so prices in this market place are currently somewhat uncharted waters. Some guidance of the retail sector can be gleaned from the retrospective exhibition mounted in April at the Mall Galleries where prices ranged from under £1,000 for domestic-sized bronzes to £45,000 for over-life size figures. End of ranges of limited edition sculptures and lithographs of the artist’s drawings are available from Melrose Studios, which remains in operation under the aegis of Michael’s daughter tel: 020 8870 8561, email: sue@melrosestudios.com, www.melrosestudios.com

Illustrations, which are under strict copyright, are courtesy of Sue Rizzello, the artist’s daughter, Fraser Marr and Tim Hawkins.

A member of the International Association of Art Critics, Anthony J. Lester is a writer, broadcaster and consultant on British art. He can be contacted by e-mail at anthonylester@fsmail.net

This article first appeared in 'Antique Collecting' magazine, published by the Antique Collectors' Club, www.antique-collecting.co.uk