LEE MENICHETTI was a native of New York City, the son of Italian-American parents. From earliest childhood he showed talent for art and design, later studying at the Art Student’s League and graduating from the Traphagen School of Fashion. Famed as an innovator in the design of jewelry and glamorous accessories, for over 30 years, headed his own successful design company. He was a member of The New York Artist’s Equity Association.

TAILORED METALS – The Essence of Style in Lee Menichetti’s Art

Lee Menichetti evokes strong emotional images by creating the essence of clothes in sculptured metals. These unique costumes celebrate the lifestyles as well as the attitudes of their wearers. He evokes the person as in a portrait. In a most deliberate yet lyrical manner, Lee Menichetti tailors each garment of metal to the exact contour of the body. His unique, original achievement is the handling of unyielding metal as though it were the finest, most delicate fabric.

Only a manner of design, with both historical awareness and practical working knowledge, could create such exact and innovative images. The sculptures, whether they be an ordinary necktie or an elaborate dress for a ballerina, testify to the strength of Lee’s exquisite artistic ability. We are almost commanded to touch the sculptures to believe what our eyes tell us we are seeing. That the person intended is actually “there” in each case illustrates the success the artist has achieved. He has transformed transitory fashion ideas into the real permanence of art.

Lee’s works at one time are sociological and artistic realizations of the styles of widely contrasted people and their special worlds. Consuelo Vanderbilt’s Lace Tea Gown portrays the over-refined elegance of the privileged Edwardian. Sassy Josephine Baker connotes the Jazz Age and its desires and abandonments. The conjuction of many textures and floral designs in Carmen Miranda is the essence of Carnival flash and gaiety. The structured formality of Hapsburg society is evoked by dummy boards juxtaposing ruffled, tooled metals on a one dimensioned, wooden surface in “Viennese Soiree”.

The persuasive, easily comprehended quality of Menichetti’s “clothes” creates a uniquely tangible art form. The artist’s painstaking deftness in rendering historical detail procedures an accurate portrait in each instance, whether prosaic or exalted. The Japanese Kimono relates the delicacy contained in this rigidly meticulous garment; the interaction of design and material fuse in a unified, lyrical statement. A Bikini and a Ruffled Shawl have much in common; they are both decidedly feminine and determine a precise type of woman. The Safari Shirt and the Western Boots demonstrates aspects of essential masculinity. Menichetti at once defines an individual’s role and his personality through the clothing he creates.

“Giardino Italiano” is a delightful, lifelike rendering of garden flowers and shrubs. The same sculptured deftness employed by Lee Menichetti on the large-scale pieces is evident in his creations of small, precious objects. The jeweler’s techniques are used in making his silver puppets, whimsical creatures and jewelry; gold, silver and other precious materials form these unique objects and their brilliance is the result of their creator’s strong sense of interpretation.

The forms of the human body, clothed or unclothed, have provided an eternal base for art. Since clothes are inseparable from the self they express, they reflect the changing views man has of his ideal. Lee Menichetti’s art is a vivid, touching interpretation of this idea.

The art of Lee Menichetti succeeds because his vision, creativity and his masterful technique combine to make a single, poetic statement.

-Thomas F. Knapp
Curator