Life and Career
Robert Mihaly was born in Akron, Ohio. Largely self-educated, he abandoned an art/honors scholarship at Kent State University to relocate to North Carolina. At the age of 21, he was awarded $10,000 in a national college entrepreneur contest. His business plan to design and sell artistic architectural ornaments was selected from 600 other proposals.
In 1996–97, Mihaly was the Artist in Residence at Washington National Cathedral, the country's second-largest cathedral. Mihaly and the church encountered a stumbling block: the 24,000-pound (11,000 kg) Vermont marble block Mihaly was transforming into an angel. The cathedral came to think of the stone and scaffolding as an eyesore and safety hazard. The cathedral removed the structure, leaving Mihaly unable to work. Mihaly unsuccessfully sued the cathedral in small-claims court for breach of contract.
In 2002, Duke University commissioned Mihaly for the first gargoyles at Duke since the construction of the Gothic-styled West Campus. The University commissioned the gargoyles to honor Aubrey and Kathleen McClendon, a couple who gave $5.5 million for a new dorm. The Gothic west campus has more than 100 gargoyles perched upon buildings to ward off evil spirits. But these two sculptures "ended up spooking the wealthy donors they were intended to honor", and were subsequently removed from the building.
Read more about this topic: Robert Mihaly
Famous quotes containing the words life and/or career:
“There is in him, hidden deep-down, a great instinctive artist, and hence the makings of an aristocrat. In his muddled way, held back by the manacles of his race and time, and his steps made uncertain by a guiding theory which too often eludes his own comprehension, he yet manages to produce works of unquestionable beauty and authority, and to interpret life in a manner that is poignant and illuminating.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)