Sculptor radiated ‘aura of consummate artist’
TAOS — Internationally known modern art sculptor and Taos resident Peter Chinni, 90, died this week after suffering a head injury in a fall.
Chinni fell Monday evening while rehearsing with the Taos Community Chorus for a spring performance. Members of the chorus said he appeared to strike his head on a pew at First Presbyterian Church of Taos.
Fellow sculptor and chorus member T.J. Mabrey said a doctor in the chorus checked Chinni and continued to monitor him before calling an ambulance. Chinni was taken to Holy Cross Hospital, Mabrey said.
Chinni’s close friend, Jules Epstein, said he fell into a coma from a brain bleed and died Tuesday evening.
“His daughter, Christine, and her husband, Mark, arrived from Austin, Texas, and were there with friends when he passed about 9 p.m.,” Epstein said.
Epstein was also at the chorus rehearsal and remained with Chinni until his death.
“He was an unstoppable man,” Epstein said.
Chinni quickly cemented his place in Taos’ community of artists after his arrival in 2004. His exhibit Inside/Out was part of the Harwood Museum’s Winter Exhibition that opened Nov. 3 and closed Jan. 13.
The Taos Arts Council nominated Chinni for a Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts in February 2018, although he wasn’t selected for the honor. “Chinni’s art has always been original and dynamic,” says a statement from the council.
“He has inspired numerous artists of Taos and beyond in seeking their own path to creativity. Whether at a local restaurant or an art opening, his persona, always gentle and kind, radiates with the aura of the consummate artist.”
Chinni was born in 1928, the son of immigrants from Calabria, Italy, in Mount Kisco, N.Y. His interest in art began at age 19 with the Art Students League in New York, where he caught the attention of Italian critic and art historian Lionello Venturi. With Venturi’s endorsement, Chinni attended the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome, studying painting and portraiture. In 1949, he left the arts academy to study privately with painter Felice Casorati in Turin and later with the cubist sculptor Roberto Melli in Rome, according to his online bio.
The Italian influence is strong in Chinni’s work. A design element he frequently used in his work is an interlocking feature that appears both mechanical and organic.
“I’ve believed for a long time that nothing stands alone,” he once said.
“Everything has a partner, no matter how much you break it down under a microscope. What keeps them alive, in a sense, is a certain dynamic that’s created between them.”
Chinni was honored by the shah of Iran with a solo show on the island of Kish in 1974. He continued his success with exhibitions at the Musée d’Ixelles in Brussels, the Beeckestijn Museum in Holland and the Bouma Galerie in Amsterdam.
He has pieces in the Rockefeller collection, the Hirshhorn Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Epstein said Chinni worked five to seven hours a day in his studio right up until his death.