Mario Joseph Korbel (March 22, 1882 – March 31, 1954) was a Czech-American sculptor.
Biography He was born in Osík, Bohemia (now Czech Republic) on March 22, 1882, to a clergyman, Joseph Korbel and his wife Katherina Dolezal Korbel. He began studying sculpture in his homeland, continuing his studies after moving to the United States at age 18. He returned to Europe and continued his studies in Berlin, Munich and Paris.Proske, Beatrice Gilman, Brookgreen Gardens Sculpture, Brookgreen Gardens, SC, 1968 p. 231
He was one of a dozen sculptors invited to compete in the Pioneer Woman statue competition in 1927,‘’Exhibition of Models for a Monument to the Pioneer Woman" at the Chicago Architectural Exhibition, East Galleries, Art Institute of Chicago, June 25 to August 1, 1927 which he failed to win. Korbel's submission by name of "Heroic" is on display as part of Phillips' collection at WoolarocFrank's Fancy: Frank Phillips' Woolaroc by Gale Morgan Kane, published 2001 by Oklahoma Heritage Association, page 147
Korbel was a member of the National Sculpture Society.National Sculpture Society, ‘’Contemporary American Sculpture", National Sculpture Society, NY 1929 He was elected into the National Academy of Design in 1937 as an Associate member and became a full Academician in 1944.
He died on March 31, 1954, in Manhattan, New York City.
Works His sculpture can be found at below sites, as well as at several sites in the Czech Republic. Brookgreen Gardens, Murrells Inlet, South Carolina Art Institute of Chicago Lyman Allyn Museum, New London, Connecticut Museum of Fine Arts of St Petersburg, St Petersburg, Florida Honolulu Academy of Fine Arts, Honolulu, Hawaii Fogg Museum. Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts Caramoor Rosen House, Katonah, New York Cranbrook Educational Community, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Canada Illinois Monument, Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park, Marietta, Georgia Racine Heritage Museum, Racine, Wisconsin "Oakland Cemetery, Iowa City, Iowa Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey McPhee Memorial, Denver, Colorado Ezekiel W. Cullen Building, University of Texas, Austin, Texas Alma Mater statue, Universidad de La Habana, Havana, Cuba (1919) Bohemian National Cemetery, Chicago, Illinois
As a medalist Korbel designed a medal struck by the Medallic Art Company New York about Nazi Germany occupying Bohemia and Moravia. That medal was available at the unfinished pavilion of Czechoslovakia of the 1939 New York World's Fair as an award for contributions to the Czech Resistance.
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