Gaetano Cecere

At the age of sixteen, Gaetano Cecere began his artistic training in the stone-carving workshop of the Piccirilli Brothers as an apprentice to Attilio Piccirilli, another of the sculptors chosen for a commission within the U.S. Postmaster General’s suite. Cecere went on to study at the National Academy of Design and the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design in New York City before winning the Prix de Rome in 1920. Cecere later served as the instructor of modeling at Cooper Union and as director of the Department of Sculpture at the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design. Today, Cecere’s works can be found at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Smithsonian Institution.