Mario Joseph Korbel

Mario Joseph Korbel (1882-1954) was one of the most respected American sculptors of the early twentieth century, whose refined neoclassical bronzes of idealized female nudes established him as a distinctive voice within the American Beaux-Arts tradition. Born in Bohemia in 1882, in territory that would later become part of Czechoslovakia, he pursued his earliest artistic training in his native country before emigrating to the United States at the age of eighteen, settling initially in Chicago.

After five years in America, Korbel returned to Europe for a more extensive artistic education. He studied at the Royal Academy in Berlin and at the academy in Munich, and he completed his training at the Académie Julian in Paris, one of the most respected private studios for international students of the period. This thoroughly international education gave him the technical range and cultivated sensibility that would define his mature practice, combining the refined draftsmanship of the French academic tradition with the classical monumentality of the German schools.

Korbel returned to the United States and spent time in New York City and Chicago before settling permanently in New York in 1913. During the 1920s his most significant sponsor was George Booth, the owner of the Detroit News, whose patronage helped establish Korbel's reputation among leading American collectors. He worked primarily in bronze, often experimenting with the medium and pursuing new patinas and textures. He most frequently depicted idealized female nudes, and he worked in the neoclassical style that had shaped his European training.

Korbel was elected an Associate Member of the National Academy of Design in 1937 and a full Member in 1944, one of the highest recognitions available to an American sculptor of his era. His works are held in numerous public collections, and he completed important commissions for the state of Illinois, the McPhee Memorial in Denver, the University of Havana in Cuba, the Czech National Council, and the British-American Ambulance Corps.