The Legacy of Virgil Cantini

The Italian Radio Hour

his week on The Italian Radio Hour - Virgil Cantini - a familiar face not only to the Pittsburgh arts world but also to hundreds of students, faculty, and visitors who walk day in an day out thru Posvar Hall, the Chevron Science Center or in front of Lawrence Hall. Cantini was the founder of the University's Studio Arts Department, which created 13 pieces of public art for the University, most of which are still on display today. But mainly Cantini's legacy is in the belief that art should be accessible to all. The materials used stood the test of time and these days, and recently they had to survive one bigger test: not being covered, or destroyed because of new urban developments. In 2018, a pedestrian tunnel underneath Bigelow Boulevard Downtown was expected to be filled in with dirt for the construction of a new park. For local preservationists, there was one issue — on the walls of the tunnel was the 1964 mosaic created by Cantini. “We were basically told that the designers were the park did not see a place for these modern mosaics in their new design,” Cantini-Seguin said. “They had another theme going, and so at that point, the plan was to try to save three [of the 28] mosaic panels.” After almost five years of undergoing restoration while in storage, the mosaic was reinstalled using federal funding in the Steel Plaza T station earlier this month. Its installation was made possible through the efforts of preservationists including Preservation Pittsburgh and the City of Pittsburgh. Cantini’s daughter, Lisa Cantini-Seguin, said Cantini was inspired to create public art following a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1958. “He had seen different decorations of public spaces in Europe, and so he was trying to bring that idea back to the United States,” Cantini-Seguin said. Cantini, who passed away in 2009 at the age of 90, taught in the Pitt Studio Arts department for 38 years and often used Pittsburgh as inspiration for his work. “My dad would drive all over the city of Pittsburgh to see from above and from below, from dawn until nighttime,” Cantini-Seguin said. “He wanted to see what the city looked like, since he worked in abstract.” In this interview, Brittany Reilly, Director of Preservation Pittsburgh, Melissa Marinaro, Director of the Italian American Program at the Senator John Heinz History Center and Lisa Cantini-Seguin share with us all challenges, and the work being done to make sure that now, we can all enjoy Cantini's work. So next time you are downtown Pittsburgh, make sure to check out the Steel Plaza T Station.

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