Bronze and Granite

As the University's first and only studio professor of Visual and Environmental Studies, Brooklyn bred Dimitri Hadzi enjoys the unique position of Harvard's permanent artist in residence. He is a sculptor of world acclaim represented in the permanent collections of such museums at New York's Museum of Modern Art. Guggenheim and Whitney and the Hirschorn museum in Washington. Run your hand over his 64 inch bronze. "Thebes III" currently on exhibit at the Carpenter Center, and it feels alive, in an age dominated by steel fabricated sculpture. Hadzi is a determined texturalist, sculpting pieces which have a natural quality to them, as if they were made of the earth. The bronze doors on St. Paul's Church in Rome are his, and his monumental pieces stand in New York's Lincoln Center, outside Boston City Hall, and starting in 1984, here in Harvard Square.

One might expect an artist of this stature to shy away from a teaching or administrative post--such a job could only keep him out of the studio. But since coming to Harvard in 1975, Hadzi says he has done more work than ever before.

In Rome, where he lived for 25 years, "I would get up in the morning, have my cappuccino, and while I'm having my cappuccino, I might as well sit down and read the paper. While I'm sitting down I might as well watch the girls go by, I could spend whole days outside like that."

"Now," he continues, sitting in his rooftop Carpenter Center studio, "because my time is extra valuable, I can get much more work done in the day." Working with students is particularly stimulating, he notes, since he doesn't get stuck on "fixed ideas."

Hadzi works hard and fast. He always has. As a child during the Depression he shined shoes to earn cash. Working in his studio most nights until the wee hours, he averages four to six hours of sleep a night. More often than not, these work hours pay off. In 1979 the Archdiocese of Boston phoned him 10 days before the Pope was due to arrive to ask him to sculpt the processional crucifix. The artist did it in seven.

"I called the foundry in Providence, and they said they could cast it in three days. They dropped everything to do it. They were Catholics."

Since then, Hadzi's laurels have accrued. Last month, he was inducted as one of the 250 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an honor which the artist jokingly attributes to a blessing from the Archdiocese.

Born in New York to parents of Greek origin, Hadzi led a double childhood, attending two schools a day First there was regular public school in Brooklyn's Park Slope area. Afterwards, from four to six in the afternoon, while most boys were playing stickball, Hadzi attended a special Greek school. This triggered his imagination, he says. As a result, while his work is clearly grounded in American Abstract Expressionism. Hadzi's concerns have been classical. A romantic and a traditionalist, he has devoted most of in career to mastering the ancient technique of bronze cast.

The classics echo constantly throughout Hadzi's work. Many of his earlier, more representational works involve the mythical figures of centaurs and lapiths. Later series evoke images of helmets, shields and arches. And if the sculptures themselves are not heroic enough certainly their names are "Delphic Omphalos," River Oracle," and "Naxian Object."

Lately, Hadzi's work has been moving in a new direction. In his own words, he is "getting away from the Baroque and Hellenistic influences and to much simpler and more powerful forms." Also, he has begun working in stone.

"When I went to Rome I became so fascinated with bronze that I stuck with it," he says. "Now that I look back, I think I should have gone up to Carrara and spent more time getting to know stone." A summer at the international sculpture symposium in the basalt quarries of Eugene, Oregon gave him his first opportunity.

In a similar trend away from his earlier style, Hadzi's work has gotten progressively larger. The four major commissions he has taken on since 1978 vivify this change in their immutable grandeur. In 1978 he completed a colored granite floor mosaic and 16-foot fountain for the headquarters of Johnson Wax in Racine, Wisconsin. Three years later, at the world headquarters of Owens-Illinois in Toledo, Ohio he unveiled his mammoth 36-foot granite "Propylea," its name recalling the welcoming gates of the Acropolis.

With three granite posts, Propylea is basically a tripodic form with a large crossbar spanning the top. Almost like a geyser, water spurts out the top and spills down the sides. The director of Toledo's art museum, Roger Mandle, has called the sculpture "a symbol of the city's role as a major seaport and gateway to the Great Lakes." To the rest of us, Propylea's massive structure brings to mind to mysterious monuments of Stonehenge.

Currently, Hadzi has two commissions on his hands. Later this year he will see the installation of his yet-unnamed sculpture fountain in the indoor atrium of the new Copley Place mall in Boston. Running up and down the center of the 60 by 30-foot sculpture are large granite pieces with varying colors, shapes and textures. Water runs down from the top, occasionally disappearing behind the granite. Flanking the middle section on either side are "gates" of travertine from Italy, Turkey and Iran. The inside edges of the travertine billow in and out like waves, or what Hadzi calls, "a gentle hourglass form; it takes you up and then it takes you down."

Hadzi's extensive research for the Copley Place project reveals his thoughtful approach to commissions. "The gates are welcoming, but it has to be about Boston. New England and America. I thought of water and seamen from the harbor and so the different angels of granite and water are like seamen's knots." One of the recurring problems with fountains, he adds, is how to get the maximum water effect with the minimum water.

The fall of 1985 will see the installation of his 16-foot "Omphalos" set on the island between Johnson Gate and the Coop. Omphalos is Greek for "center of the universe," and that's exactly what Hadzi had in mind.

Still in its conceptual stages is the commission that is closer to home. The fall of 1985 will see the installation of his 16-foot "Omphalos" set on the island between Johnson Gate and the Coop in the new Harvard Square. Omphalos is Greek for "center of the universe," and that's exactly what Hadzi had in mind.

"Harvard Square really is the omphalos of the educational world--not only because of Harvard, but Tufts, B.U., and all the others," he says.

The finished form is still a year away, but in his studio a half-size cardboard model made by Hadzi's assistant Romolo Deldeo '82 stands as a preview. Once again, three posts of different colored six-foot tall granite blocks act as a base for stainless steel units on top. With what Hadzi calls a "mysterious, mystical effect," water will come out the top, disappear into the stainless steel, and electrically recycle itself. The water never reaches the ground.

But the Harvard Square project poses a weight problem. With only 20-ton steel beams holding up the ceiling of the subway station beneath it. Omphalos cannot exceed 35 tons. By working back and forth from a half-size model to a hand-held quarter-size one. Hadzi hopes to accommodate the restriction. Eventually he will build a full-size model, perhaps in the Carpenter Center basement. Clearly, a concern for public safety puts constraints on Hadzi's work. But it was reassuring in the late 60s when war protestors climbed to the top of Thermopylae outside Boston City Hall and the sculpture didn't collapse, he says with a laugh.

"Harvard Square is going to be very beautiful, you know. There will be lots of trees, I'm hoping people will walk through the sculpture."

Looking to the future, Hadzi hopes to get back to work on small things, although a friend has just given him a 12-foot elm log.

Small things for Hadzi mean lapidary work (he especially likes jade) and etchings, which he says are good practice for his hands. His etchings are unusually figurative, with images of flowers and anatomy. One thing he loves is to surprise a friend with a prepared etching plate along with a tool to scratch in a design. Later he has the plate bit and printed.

Meanwhile Hadzi is hoping for a sabbatical in 1984-85. He has served as acting director of the Carpenter Center for one year and is currently acting VES department chairman. Should he take time off, Hadzi will have the time to pursue all his new interests, perhaps taking them as far as India or Japan