by Margareta Sciortino
Philip George Sciortino unexpectedly passed away at his mountain home in the early morning of June 14, 2026. He leaves behind his wife, Margareta; daughters Cassandra and Freja; his son, Ingmar; as well as two granddaughters, Sofia and Daphne.
Born on May 28, 1944, in Auburn, New York, Philip’s family moved to Richmond, Indiana, in 1950. Philip had an early love for art and took private painting classes when he was 10 years old in Richmond. From 1961–1962, Philip served in the U.S. Navy, receiving an honorable discharge due to medical reasons. In 1964, Philip attended the Dayton Art Institute in Ohio, where he studied painting and sculpture, creating many large oil paintings as well as several over-life-size sculptures in clay. After leaving the Dayton Art Institute, Philip established an art studio with a friend, where he worked on large abstract clay sculptures and relief sculptures.
Although his life was now saturated with creativity and he was gaining valuable skills as a sculptor, Philip wanted to pursue academics and decided to move to California in 1966, where he enrolled in San Francisco City College. In addition to the required academic classes, he studied photography and filmmaking and soon gained recognition for his unique and creative approach to, especially, cinematography. In 1967, Philip met his wife, Margareta, who became his photography model and appeared in his films. A few years later, they were walking in San Francisco when Margareta found a small fragment of marble on the street in front of a demolished Victorian building and gave it to Philip.
This became a pivotal moment for Philip, who immediately felt that he must return to sculpture. Within weeks, he was acquiring remnant marble pieces from monument companies in the city. A vacant basement in the building served as a studio, where he immediately started to create many unique sculptures using a hammer and a chisel. At night, he drove a taxi to support himself and his pregnant wife.
In 1974, Philip and his wife purchased a 15-acre remote mountain property with a modest cabin in the Sierra. With a brand-new baby and no electricity, the young couple quickly learned how to live like pioneers, growing a large vegetable garden, using wood for heat and cooking, and lighting many kerosene lamps as the daylight faded. Within a few months, Philip built a large studio and continued to create and sell domestic-size marble sculptures while raising a family and maintaining their homestead. When his in-laws came to visit from Sweden, his father-in-law showed Philip how to build with field stones. This undertaking soon grew into a stone masonry business for clients in the local community to supplement his income, until private and public sculpture commissions demanded his total attention.
During this period, Philip began working in wax and clay, making molds for bronze sculpture castings, exploring many platonic variations of the female form, intertwined male and female themes, as well as many naturalistic compositions. He had multiple gallery exhibitions and was featured in local newspaper articles and multiple weekly video and radio programs such as Arts Alive and Coffee and Conversation.
Philip’s first public art commission was at a war memorial in Marysville, CA, where he fabricated a large bronze dome depicting, in high relief, the various theaters of world wars, with the circumference covered with faces of soldiers expressing the horror and glory of combat. The next project was a large, circular bronze relief for the outside wall of a newly established tribal health facility in Lakeport, CA. Philip named it “The Pomo Family,” as it portrays the faces of the Native Pomo tribal members.
A commission to create a substantial bronze war memorial near the public library in Folsom, CA, followed. This project included three gigantic books situated between two massive granite boulders, a grieving widow, a majestic eagle with the American flag grasped in its talons, and a kneeling soldier. Outside the library entrance, a service dog stands at attention. On the inside library wall is a mounted bronze relief of a fallen Folsom soldier caressing his service dog, and below is a glass case containing the soldier’s many medals and ribbons.
Another bronze public sculpture in Citrus Heights, CA, followed, located near the City Hall entrance. An exuberant young boy holds up and is encircled by a banner on which the history of Citrus Heights is portrayed in relief. Philip had barely completed the Citrus Heights sculpture before he was approached by a commission in Sparks, Nevada, to create an eagle mounted on a tall, rough granite pillar for the city’s new expansive sports facility in Golden Eagle Park.
Not long after, the Oroville Veterans Memorial Park contacted Philip regarding the creation of a life-size bugler and eagle in bronze. These two magnificent sculptures were the last public art that he completed and installed. He was joyfully working on a four-foot domestic, music-inspired abstract ensemble for a client the very night before he passed away.
Philip was passionate about creating sculptures that would make the viewer reflect and experience what he called “a soul inside in the sculpture,” and all of his pieces were crafted with a powerful inner drive. He often referred to his large, realistic bronzes as family members and experienced a sense of loss when they were delivered. Philip’s wife and family lost a loving, exciting, and compassionate husband and father, and the world lost a rare, multi-talented sculptor when he unexpectedly passed on in the early morning hours as the sun began to rise.
