Rinaldo Paluzzi

Rinaldo Paluzzi (May 27, 1927 – March 27, 2013) was an American-Spanish Abstract Art and Geometric abstraction painter and sculptor in the post-World War II era. He was born in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, and died in Madrid, Spain.

Education and works

After serving in the U.S. Navy during WWII, he was a student at the John Herron School of Art (now part of the Indiana University) from 1948 to 1950. He then left to attend the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome Italy until the end of 1951. After returning to the Herron, he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1953. He remained at the Herron, where in 1957 he was awarded a Master of Fine Arts.

The following is from the Herron Chronicle (published in 2003).

Upon their return to Greensburg, a local gallery devoted a showing in Indianapolis to all 65 paintings he had finished during that year away.

He is best known in the United States for Totem a 32 x 5 x 5 foot sculpture located in Celebration Plaza, White River State Park, Indianapolis, Indiana. Made of stainless steel, it is a triangular shaped vertical tube with triangular and trapezoidal cut-outs in the steel. It was constructed in 1982, and sits centered atop a concrete circle, 40 feet in diameter, with a sundial face.