Dimensions: 23.5" L x 31" H
 
Beniamino "Bene" Bufano was born in San Fele, Italy. One of fifteen children, he migrated to New York with his family as a child. Settling in New York, Bufano began studying art at an early age at the Art Students League under the celebrated sculptors James E. Frazer, Herbert Adams, and Paul Manship. He first received public attention while still in his teens when he won the Whitney $500 First Prize for The Immigrants, his statuary group depicting the suffering and misery of the peoples he saw daily on the East Side. Arriving in San Francisco in 1915, he designed the figure groups for the Court of the Universe on the Arch of Triumph and other decorative sculpture for the Panama Pacific Exposition of 1915. He then executed the Panels of Art, 20 feet high over the Palace of Fine Arts. After years of travel, including an extensive stay in China, Bufano began teaching sculpture at the California School of Fine Arts and the University of California at Berkeley. His first one-man show in San Francisco was in the City of Paris Galleries in June 1925,
an exhibit that attracted national art interest. The National Sculpture Society sponsored a traveling exhibition of a collection of Bufano's works displayed in the major art centers across the U.S. and Europe.