Angelo Granata - Maus Contemporary

Angelo Granata was born in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1922 and was the son of Italian immigrants Ettore and Secondina Granata. His father was a self-employed tile mason, which likely influenced his desire to become a sculptor, receiving a BA (1947) and MFA (1948) in studio sculpture from the University of Iowa where he also studied architecture and art history. Granata had been at the University of Iowa for three years prior to enlisting in the US Navy, attending midshipman school at Duke University and serving in the Pacific. Upon returning to Iowa after the war to complete his studies, he met Clara Louise Woods, who he would marry in 1948 before coming to The University of Alabama in 1949 as one of the founding faculty members of the art department. He was professor of sculpture until his retirement in 1988. His work is included in the permanent collections of The University of Alabama; The University of Iowa; Grinnell College, IA; Cornell College, IA; Georgetown College, KY; and the Davenport Municipal Museum in Iowa.

Granata's work was included in the groundbreaking 1959 traveling exhibition Recent Sculpture U.S.A. at the Museum of Modern Art, MoMA, New York, alongside Ruth Asawa, Alexander Calder, John Chamberlain, Jacques Lipchitz, Larry Rivers, David Smith, among others. His work was included in exhibitions at Museum of Modern Art, New York City; Forum Gallery, New York City; the Boston Museum of Art; the Los Angeles Museum of Art ; the Denver Museum of Art; the St Louis Museum of Art; the Birmingham Museum of Art; the Delgado Museum of Art (now the New Orleans Museum of Art); the Wichita Museum of Art in Wichita, KS; the Des Moines Museum of Art in Des Moines, IA; the Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, FL; the Hunter Museum of Art, Chattanooga, TN; the Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC; as well as at the Departamento de Arte Yucatán in Mèridia, Yucatán, Mexico; and the Centro Colombo Americano, Cali, Colombia.