With its proximity to the cultural hub of New York City and its quieter suburban and rural landscapes, Connecticut was fertile ground for artists and writers in the period of Modernist movements between 1913 and 1979. Many of these cultural figures are well known through biographical and critical studies. Creative Places seeks to show how place played a significant role in creative work, and how in turn the artists and writers influenced communities in Connecticut.
Edward Ferrari
Sculpture
1903 – 2001
Edward Ferrari created the molds for the ornamentation on the Merritt Parkway bridges, and designed that of the Comstock Hill Avenue bridge. He also created architectural ornamentation for buildings in New York and Connecticut.
- Biography/Description of Work
Ferrari was born in New York in 1903, and by 1920, according to the Census Records of New Haven County, Edward and his parents were living in Connecticut. Edward Ferrari was the son of sculptor Febo Ferrari (1865-1949) and followed in his father’s footsteps. He attended Yale School of Fine Arts from 1923-1926. During construction of the Merritt Parkway, Ferrari bid on each bridge project, and won all but one. He collaborated with George L. Dunkelberger, project architect, from 1935 to 1941, creating three dimensional models from Dunkelberger’s ornamentation sketches. The models were then sent to to be cast at either Malleable Iron Works or Decorative Stone in New Haven for concrete elements. For the Comstock Hill Avenue bridge, Dunkelberger suggested Ferrari design and create the ornamentation. For weeks Ferrari sketched a Native American and a Pilgrim to be placed on either side of the bridge. His father Febo offered to create the mold of the Native American sculpture, leaving Edward to create the mold of the Pilgrim. Sometime after the Merritt Parkway project ended, Edward Ferrari began working in the prototype department of General Electrics, designing house ware items. In his later years he resided in Milford, where he died in 2001.
- Sources view
- Larned, Larry; Images of America: Traveling The Merritt Parkway; Arcadia Publishing, Charleston SC, Chicago IL, Portsmouth NH, San Francisco CA, 1998; Lynn, Catherine; Edward Ferrari’s Sculpture on the Merritt Parkway, Connecticut Preservation News, Volume XIV, No. 5; Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation, 1991; Lynn, Catherine and Wigren, Christopher; Merritt Parkway; National Register of Historic Places Nomination No. 91000410; National Park Service, 1991; Thibodeau, Todd and Smith, Corinne; Merritt Parkway, Comstock Hill Road Bridge, Historic American Engineering Record, HAER No. CT-88; National Park Service, 1992.
- Associated Resource(s)