Boy with Goose

Sculpture by Girolamo Piccoli

Boy with Goose

Artist| Girolamo Piccoli
Year| 1927
Dimensions|  (43 inches in × 20 inches in × 13 inches in)
Location| Milwaukee, WI
Coordinates| 43°2′56.909″N 87°54′0.547″W﻿ / ﻿43.04914139°N 87.90015194°W﻿ / 43.04914139; -87.90015194

Boy with Goose, is a public artwork by Italian artist Girolamo Piccoli, currently in storage in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States.

## Description

[edit]

The work is cast bronze 3 feet 7 inches (109 cm) high x 1 foot 8 inches (51 cm) wide x 1 foot 1 inch (33 cm) deep. A small naked boy sits holding a pet goose in his lap. The boy holds the goose's head in his proper left hand. Water for the fountain comes from the bird's open beak. The sculpture is mounted on an irregularly shaped, tiered base and set in a planter.[1]

## Historical information

[edit]

In 1925 Andrew A. McCabe, a local resident, commissioned the original Boy with Goose as a fountain for his home on North Lake Drive. According to a newspaper account, the real-life model for the figure was Dominic Joseph Balestrieri, who later became a city of Milwaukee fireman who died in 1961.[2] Other citizens liked the work so much they raised $800 to have a replica cast in Bremen, Germany, and placed in Lake Park in 1927, north of the streetcar depot. The fountain charmed visitors to the park until 1964 when vandalism to the base caused park officials to remove it and place the bronze in storage.[3]

### Location history

[edit]

When the Mandel Group, developers of East Point Commons, announced plans for multi-family housing to be located on nine blocks of the abandoned Park East freeway corridor, the City of Milwaukee dedicated part of the land to become a small public park to be maintained by the owners. An art advocacy citizens' group, Art Action, saw this development as an opportunity to retrieve the Boy with Goose bronze, which had languished in county storage for many years. Art Action coordinated the cooperation between the private sector, the city, and the county to find the work and subsequently have the bronze restored, re-patinated, and sited in its present location.[3]

## Artist

[edit]

The artist, Girolamo Piccoli, was born in Palermo, Italy in 1902. Brought to Milwaukee by his parents at the age of four, he later studied at the Wisconsin School of Art in Madison, and with Frank Vittor (1888–1968) in Pittsburgh (1921–1922), and Lorado Taft in Chicago (1923). Piccoli began teaching at the Layton School of Art in 1924 and became chair of the modeling (sculpture) department a year later.

From 1924 to 1928 the sculptor won several awards for his work from the Milwaukee Art Institute and completed many private commissions. Piccoli left Layton in 1928 for New York City, where he opened a studio with his wife, also an artist. In the 1930s he was named Director of Sculpture for New York City under the Federal Art Program of the Great Depression.[3]

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "Boy with the Goose, (sculpture)". siris-artinventories.si.edu.
2. ^ [Albano, Laurie Muench. Milwaukee County parks. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Pub., 2007. Print.],
3. ^ a b c [Buck, Diane M., and Virginia A. Palmer. Outdoor Sculpture in Milwaukee: a cultural and historical guidebook. madison: State Historical Society Of Wisconsin, 1995. Print.], Outdoor Sculpture in Milwaukee: A Cultural and Historical Guidebook

* v
* t
* e

Public art in Milwaukee

Downtown|

* The Victorious Charge
* Family
* The Calling
* Wisconsin Workers Memorial
* Wind Leaves
* Birds of Knowledge of Good and Evil
* The Great Double
* Woodland Indian and Whistling Swans
* Solomon Juneau
* Leif, the Discoverer
* Letter Carriers' Monument
* Argo
* Bronze Fonz
* Walkways Through the Wall
* Abraham Lincoln
* George Washington
* Referee
* Immigrant Mother
* King Gambrinus
* RiverSculpture!
* Gertie the Duck
* General Douglas MacArthur
* The Spirit of Polonia
* World War I Memorial Flagpole
* Pedestrian Drama
* Midsummer Carnival Shaft
* Acqua Grylli
* Laureate
* Diana
* Trigon
* Pere Jacques Marquette
* Spanish–American War Soldier
* Ruins X
* Ex Stasis
* City Yard
* Mahatma Gandhi Memorial
* Peter John
* A Beam of Sun to Shake the Sky
* Rainbow Machine
* Topiary Lucere
* Dancing Through Life
* Mother Teresa Monument
* Jacques Marquette
* You Rise Above the World
* The Last Alarm
* John Plankinton

North Side|

* Celebrating the Arts
* Christian Wahl
* Elk
* On Watch
* Pattern
* Lapham Memorial
* Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
* Music
* Fishing
* Spirit of the Firefighter
* Dauntless Guardian
* Buildings 1992
* Gear 23
* All in the Air at Once
* First Flight
* Sea of the Ear
* Kindred Ties

East Side|

* Cleopatra's Wedge
* Float
* Polyphony
* Boy with Goose
* Eight Stone Lions
* Three Bronze Discs
* Holocaust Memorial
* Happy-Go-Luckies of Nature and Technology
* Blue Dress Park
* Sentinels
* Hermes
* Milwaukee
* Eclipse
* 'X' Intertwining
* Compass
* Erastus B. Wolcott
* Sharing the Load
* Robert Burns
* Near Here
* Compass
* Walk Like a River
* Spillover II
* Tip
* Jantar-Mantar
* Cass Street Park
* Brady Street Beasts
* Connect
* Fairies Candles

South Side|

* Menomonee
* Count Casimir Pulaski
* Spirit of Commerce
* Bay View Series
* A Place to Sit
* Stratiformis
* The Hill Climber
* Deflected Jets
* Angel in a Cage
* R. D. Whitehead Monument
* Memorial for Belle Austin Jacobs
* T. A. Chapman Memorial
* Nature Belle
* Oops, Missed
* Space Game
* Engine Company No. 10
* William A. Starke Memorial
* Steel Reborn
* Red Flower Rising
* Equestrian statue of Tadeusz Kościuszko
* Patrick Cudahy Memorial
* SOARING
* Two Opposites Reaching Up Toward the Peak of Progress
* Edge Elements
* Ribbons VI
* Bridge
* Stone Bracelet
* Untitled
* Quartet
* Tending the Fire
* Bird and Fish
* The Sower
* The Reaper
* Giving Gifts
* Watertower

West Side|

* Henry Bergh
* Goethe–Schiller Monument
* Chrysalis
* The Ideal Scout
* Uptown Triangles
* Tree of Life
* Magic Grove
* Steuben Monument
* Kneeling Camels
* Teamwork
* Aaron Monument
* Yount Monument
* Selig Monument
* Uecker Monument
* Fire and Water
* Vliet Street Commons
* Miller Valley Veterans Monument
* Children of the West End

Lynden Sculpture Garden|

* Sinai
* Wandering Rocks
* Sea Form (Atlantic)
* Sky Fence
* Floating Sculpture No. 3
* Mo, Ni, Que
* Trio
* Two-Piece Reclining Figure No. 9
* Way Four
* Compound Junior
* Salem No. 7
* Bremen Town Musicians
* Ancestor
* Queen of Sheba
* Rhythm in Space
* Peristyle, Three Lines
* Orizzontale
* Embrace
* Ursa Major
* Three Graces
* Large Torso, Arch
* Double Up
* Upstart
* The Lovers (di Suvero)
* Poland
* Axeltree
* Orbits
* Ritual II
* Hara
* Olympus
* The Lovers (Daen)
* Tensione No. 2
* The Source
* Rainbow
* Unfolding
* Vegetative Sculpture I
* Round About
* Lodgepole
* Twist for Max
* Bench-Stone
* Windfall
* Knife Tree
* Conversations with Magic Stones, Figure Three
* Conversations with Magic Stones (Magic Stone Three)
* Kumo
* Untitled
* Arch
* Epicenter
* Epicenter II
* III Columns
* Flight
* Pin Oak I

Mobile projects|

* Overpass Light Brigade

*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template