Description
William Lawrence deMatteo (1923-1988) Hand Hammered Sterling silver leaf dish<br>6.5" x 4.5" x 114.5 grams with no issues.<br><br>William Lawrence deMatteo (12 October 1923–14 May 1988), silversmith and master<br>craftsman, was born in New York City and was the son of Elizabeth Rommelman<br>deMatteo and William Gaitano deMatteo, an accomplished silversmith who<br>immigrated to the United States from Acciaroli, Salerno, Italy, with his family<br>when he was a boy. William Lawrence deMatteo grew up in suburban Bergenfield,<br>New Jersey, and attended schools in nearby Tenafly, all the while observing and<br>absorbing his father's skillful work. DeMatteo began studying sculpture and fine<br>arts at Columbia University in 1941, but after the United States entered World<br>War II he joined the navy in November 1942 and served in the Pacific theater as<br>a torpedo er pilot. On 14 November 1946, in Asbury Park, he married Jayne<br>Walpole, a painter who later cofounded an art gallery. They had three daughters<br>and one son. DeMatteo resumed his apprenticeship with his father and may have<br>continued his studies at Columbia before being recalled to active duty with the<br>navy during the Korean War. He was discharged in 1953.<br><br>Bill deMatteo, as he was usually known, visited the restored capital of colonial<br>Virginia while he was still in the service and asked to see the silversmith's<br>shop. Told that Colonial Williamsburg had none, he saw an opportunity for<br>himself. Soon after deMatteo left the navy, he returned to Williamsburg and in<br>July 1953 joined the staff as a silversmith. He created the entire silversmith<br>program and was responsible for the James Geddy Silversmith's Shop, where he<br>trained shopkeepers in interpreting craftsmanship to visitors, instructed and<br>supervised apprentices in all kinds of metalworking, and handcrafted<br>reproductions of eighteenth-century silver items for sale in the shop. DeMatteo<br>also revived colonial silversmith James Craig's Williamsburg shop, "At the Sign<br>of the Golden Ball." In January 1963 deMatteo was promoted to Staff Master<br>Craftsman and Master Silversmith.<br><br>In accord with Colonial Williamsburg's motto—that the future may learn from the<br>past—deMatteo spent much of his time in educational and advertising efforts.<br>Working from a research report that Colonial Williamsburg staff member Thomas K.<br>Bullock had prepared, in 1956 deMatteo published The Silversmith in<br>Eighteenth-Century Williamsburg–An Account of his Life & Times, & of his Craft,<br>a short history of silversmithing and techniques used in colonial days. DeMatteo<br>also provided much of the information for a 1971 video program, Silversmith of<br>Williamsburg, and the accompanying manual. In the film he demonstrated every<br>stage of making an eighteenth-century silver coffeepot, beginning with receiving<br>silver coins or scraps to be melted, discussing details of the commission with a<br>customer, methods and design, and shaping the piece with his hammer and<br>burnishing the completed coffeepot. In 1971 and 1972, deMatteo studied design,<br>silversmithing, and methods at Sir John Cass Department of Art of the City<br>London Polytechnic, and with professional London silversmiths; in 1975 he became<br>the first American craftsman to be elected an honorary foreign associate of the<br>Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, in London.<br><br>As his skill became apparent to staff and visitors, deMatteo received many<br>requests to design and craft commemorative gifts. A town-crier's bell that he<br>made for Colonial Williamsburg to present to Sir Winston Churchill in 1955<br>appeared in a picture of Churchill on the cover of Life magazine the following<br>year. DeMatteo designed presentation pieces for the White House Correspondents'<br>Association annual presentations to Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B.<br>Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford, and Jimmy Carter. He designed<br>numerous handcrafted gifts for visiting presidents, queens, kings, and prime<br>ministers, and the Department of State commissioned deMatteo to craft silver<br>trays for presentation to Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and Israeli prime<br>minister Menachem Begin at the Camp David Accords in 1978.<br><br>For a commission from the American Telephone and Telegraph Company in 1976 in<br>recognition of the centennial of Alexander Graham Bell's invention of the<br>telephone, deMatteo produced an abstract silver piece, a departure from his<br>colonial-style masterpieces, inscribed with Bell's first words transmitted over<br>his telephone. Despite his finesse, he was a modest man who insisted that he was<br>a craftsman, not an artist. DeMatteo was content to make beautiful utilitarian<br>objects that he believed did not rise to the level of imagination and required<br>of an artist. His devotion to excellence was acknowledged by the American<br>Institute of Architects, which in 1960 gave him its craftsmanship medal for high<br>achievement in industrial arts.<br><br>After twenty-six years with Colonial Williamsburg, in 1979 deMatteo left and<br>moved with his family to Alexandria. Together with his son, Chip deMatteo, and<br>Philip Thorp, a colleague at Colonial Williamsburg, he opened Hand & Hammer<br>Silversmiths. DeMatteo continued to explore and extend his range beyond<br>eighteenth-century forms. He was an affable man, noted for his disarming smile.<br>He was an intense perfectionist who was deaf to his surroundings while sitting<br>at his bench shaping precious metals with his hammer. He was also a resourceful<br>artisan who was known to make his own hammers when he failed to find suitable<br>ones in the market. DeMatteo once remarked that "being a silversmith is just a<br>delightful, lovely way to go through life" and that while he was not fully<br>satisfied with his silver work he was "very satisfied with the life I lead."<br>William Lawrence deMatteo died of leukemia at an Alexandria hospital on 14 May<br>1988. His son, who continued to work at the Hand & Hammer Silversmiths,<br>preserved his ashes.
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