The Kathredal — Mother Symbolically Represented

Achilles G. Rizzoli, The Kathredal - Mother Symbolically Represented, 1935, ink on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mike Wilkins and Sheila Duignan, Bonnie and Sy Grossman, Berkeley, CA, and museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment, 2015.4, © The Ames Gallery, Berkeley, CA
Copied Achilles G. Rizzoli, The Kathredal - Mother Symbolically Represented, 1935, ink on paper, sheet and image: 33 3⁄4 × 22 in. (85.7 × 55.9 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mike Wilkins and Sheila Duignan, Bonnie and Sy Grossman, Berkeley, CA, and museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment, 2015.4, © The Ames Gallery, Berkeley, CA

Artwork Details

Title
The Kathredal — Mother Symbolically Represented
Artist
Date
1935
Location
Not on view
Dimensions
sheet and image: 33 3⁄4 × 22 in. (85.7 × 55.9 cm)
Copyright
© The Ames Gallery, Berkeley, CA
Credit Line
Gift of Mike Wilkins and Sheila Duignan, Bonnie and Sy Grossman, Berkeley, CA, and museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment
Mediums
Mediums Description
ink on paper
Classifications
Highlights
Subjects
  • Architecture Exterior — religious — church
Object Number
2015.4
Linked Open Data
https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/2015.4

Artwork Description

Achilles G. Rizzoli lived his entire life in San Francisco, working as a draftsman in an architectural office for more than forty years. He was devoted to his own art, particularly an extensive series of architectural renderings of a utopian city in which he portrayed people, most significantly his mother, as buildings. The Kathredal: Mother Symbolically Represented is an architectural personification of his mother’s essential attributes: strength, beauty, and spiritual perfection. The YTTE (Yield to Total Elation) plans are also symbolic representations of people but adopt a floor plan format. The YTTE drawings often explore ideas of his father, who disappeared when Rizzoli was nineteen.

Exhibitions

Media - 1970.353.1-.116 - SAAM-1970.353.1-.116_9 - 127238
Galleries for Folk and Self-Taught Art
October 21, 2016–January 31, 2030
Smithsonian American Art Museum
SAAM’s collection of folk and self-taught art represents the powerful vision of America’s untrained and vernacular artists.