Frank Morbillo is a contemporary American sculptor whose abstract metalwork brings together two of his lifelong subjects, the constructed geometry of urban architecture and the geological forces that shape the western American landscape, into a body of public and gallery sculpture rooted in the Santa Fe foundry tradition.
Frank Morbillo is a contemporary American sculptor based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Born in Queens and raised on Long Island, he came to art through ceramics as an undergraduate at Alfred University in upstate New York, where a winter session in coal forging introduced him to metal as a sculptural medium. After completing his BFA he spent two years working in the building trades — accumulating the practical knowledge of construction and materials that would shape his subsequent practice — before pursuing graduate study at the University of Montana in Missoula, completing his MFA in 1984.
That same year he moved to Santa Fe, where he began working at the Shidoni Art Foundry and developed the body of bent, welded, and cast metal sculpture for which he is now known. He works principally in steel, bronze, cast glass, and recycled plastic, contrasting smooth fabricated metal surfaces with torn bronze, stratified plastic, and other rougher organic elements. His public commissions include Dance Partners (2008) in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Dancing Curves (2001) at the Appleton Public Library in Wisconsin, Healing Partners at the New Mexico Cancer Center in Albuquerque, and Sentinel, acquired by the University of New Mexico for its Taos campus through the state's Art in Public Places program. His work is also held in the Robert T. Webb Sculpture Garden and in private and corporate collections across the country.