New Georgia Encyclopedia: Athos Menaboni (1895

NGE >> The Arts >> Visual Arts >> Twentieth Century >> Individual Artists >> Athos Menaboni (1895–1990)

Athos Menaboni (1895–1990)

Italian-born artist Athos Menaboni arrived in Georgia in the late 1920s and remained active until his death at the age of ninety-four. His early career focused primarily on corporate projects, including the creation of murals for clients in Atlanta, before he turned to painting birds from life, usually in pairs and in their natural habitats. Today Menaboni is best known for his numerous paintings of more than 150 different species of birds native to the Atlanta region.

Early Life and Education

Athos Rodolfo Giorgio Alessandro Menaboni developed a profound respect for and love of nature from his early childhood in the seaport of Livorno, Italy.

Mourning Dove

The second of five children, he was born on October 20, 1895, to Jenny Neri and Averado (known as Babbo) Menaboni. His father was a ship chandler and successful businessman, which allowed the family to live prosperously. The family vacationed in the mountains of Tuscany and often captured wild animals as potential family pets. Babbo Menaboni built an aviary to house the increasing number of wild birds that his family brought home.

Menaboni's artistic talent was evident in childhood, and at the age of nine he studied with Ugo Manaresi, a marine painter. Two years later the child became an apprentice to Charles Doudelet, a Belgian artist who specialized in painting murals. He then studied with the sculptor Pietro Gori and later attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, Italy, until the outbreak in 1914 of World War I in Europe. The teenager joined the Italian army and served for four years.

Loath to join the family business after the war, Menaboni joined the crew of the U.S. vessel Colethraps under Captain John Hashagen, a friend of the family who sponsored Menaboni upon his arrival in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1920. This sponsorship allowed Menaboni to stay in the country, and he later became a citizen in 1936. He lived initially in New York City, where he struggled financially and socially because he barely spoke English. In 1924 he left New York to serve as art director and interior decorator for a resort on Davis Island in Tampa Bay, Florida, remaining there until the resort went bankrupt in 1926.

Career in Georgia

Menaboni

Athos Menaboni

was briefly employed as an interior designer for a shrine temple in Macon, Georgia, before settling in Atlanta, where he remained for the rest of his long life. At first Menaboni lived in a boarding house on Peachtree Street, where he fortuitously met Sara Regina Arnold, the niece of his landlords and a student at Shorter College (later Shorter University) in her hometown of Rome. After a one-year courtship, the couple married on August 14, 1928, and Sara soon began juggling multiple roles as Menaboni's social secretary, allowing him the solitude he craved as an artist; as his agent, sending his work to galleries and actively seeking clients for him; as his collaborator, supplying text to accompany his ornithological drawings; and as his partner in making their home a sanctuary for wildlife.

The couple settled into a small apartment and survived financially through commissions acquired through the prominent Atlanta architect Philip Trammell Shutze. Menaboni designed murals for Swan House, the home of Emily and Edward Inman that is now part of the Atlanta History Center. That work

Bobwhite

led to additional commissions for private homes, public buildings, and places of worship. Though they lived in a building with thirty-six apartments in downtown Atlanta, the couple developed a reputation for rehabilitating injured and abandoned animals, particularly birds.

The childless couple longed for a place of their own, surrounded by nature. After renting a home in the Atlanta suburbs, the couple purchased a six-acre parcel of land in Shady Springs in 1941. They named it Valle Ombrosa ("Shady Valley"), after a village northwest of Florence, Italy, where Menaboni had spent summers as a child.

Bird Paintings

In

Cardinals

1938, during a lull in commissioned work, Menaboni had time to paint from memory a cardinal, which was inspired by the work of John James Audubon and Menaboni's own careful observations of the animal in nature. This single painting opened a new avenue of work for Menaboni when Molly Aeck, a visiting interior decorator and friend, saw the painting and sold it to a client. Menaboni soon built two aviaries on the grounds of his home and eventually obtained federal and state permits to capture rare and protected species in order to study them. In his pursuit of accuracy Menaboni occasionally studied carcasses of birds and specimens in museum collections, but he preferred to capture an animal's distinct personality by observing it in nature. He was meticulous in painting both the birds and the flora of their habitat. Using thin layers of oil paints for a translucent quality, he painted on wood, silk, canvas, glass, and mirrors.

The height of Menaboni's career occurred during the 1940s and 1950s, when he created yearly Christmas cards for Robert Woodruff, the president of the Coca-Cola Company. His work appeared in advertisements and magazines, which led to the publication in 1950 of the book Menaboni's Birds, with illustrations by Menaboni and text by his wife. He also illustrated the American

Brown Leghorn

bird article in The World Book Encyclopedia in 1957, and his work was exhibited widely during this time.

Menaboni died on July 18, 1990, from complications of a stroke. His wife died on August 10, 1993. The couple left their estate to Callaway Gardens, and their papers are in the collection of the Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library at Emory University in Atlanta. In addition, papers relating to the holdings left to Callaway Gardens are located in the Troup County Archives in LaGrange.

The Albany Museum of Art opened an exhibition entitled Living on the Wind: The Bird Paintings of Athos Menaboni in 2001, and in 2009 an exhibition of Menaboni's work entitled Athos Menaboni: Portrait of a Painter opened at Kennesaw State University.