Museum News: Gift of Dimitri Hadzi’s Sculpture to Snite Art Museum
Dimitri Hadzi (American, 1921–2006), Crucifix, 1979, bronze with stone base, 21 × 13 × 10 inches (including base). Collection of the Snite Museum of Art at University of Norte Dame. Gift of Cynthia Hadzi (2021.01)
Originally published in the Site Museum of Art Museum Spring 2022 Bulletin
Although he would become one the most beloved and well-traveled pontiffs in history, John Paul II, now Saint John Paul
II, made his first trip to the United States from October 1 – 8 in1979. The trip began in Boston, in no small part owing to the deep ties to Senator Edward Kennedy. However, shortly before the visit it was discovered that a processional cross was needed. Enter the renowned American sculptor, Dmitri Hadzi (1921–2006).
Although his abstract work was included in exhibitions and collections across the globe, Hadzi was also a celebrated studio arts professor at Harvard University.
Hadzi lived and worked for many years in Rome before settling in Boston. Although his language was abstraction, he was influenced by the monumentality of Rome and its history of public art. Hadzi earned an international reputation for his large-scale public projects, so it seems somewhat incongruous that he would be commissioned to create a more intimate-scale figure of the crucified Christ, but his artistic reputation and keen sensitivity to the history of art, were well known and guided the decision.
He met the challenge of both the commission and the aggressive timeline of the impending papal visit with enthusiasm and a can-do spirit. According to a story in the Harvard Crimson on Hadzi and the John Paul II Crucifix: In 1979 the Archdiocese of Boston phoned him 10 days before the Pope was due to arrive to ask him to sculpt a processional crucifix. The artist did it in seven.
Specifically, the commission required the artist to create a sculpture of the crucified Christ that could be mounted to a staff to create a papal Processional Cross. The commission also allowed for an additional cast to function specifically as a sculpture. Dimitri kept that cast his entire life. It is this remarkable object which has recently been gifted to the Museum by his widow, Cynthia.
Attentive to the sculptor’s legacy, Cynthia was made aware of the Museum’s unique commitment to Modern and Contemporary sculpture, and, of course the University of Notre Dame’s Catholic character led to her gracious and insightful donation. In addition to the sculpture itself, the gift includes a variety of early models for the corpus and a myriad of photographic documentation of the artist at work and the sculpture coming into being.
The Museum is deeply grateful to Cynthia Hadzi and our mutual friend and colleague, Crosby Coughlin, for entrusting the University of Notre Dame with this legacy donation.
