The sculptor Lawrence Russo was born in Solofra, Italy, near Naples, in 1897, and was brought along with his family to the United States as a boy. Raised in Brooklyn, Russo represented the seventh generation of an artistic dynasty. His father, Michael Gaetano Russo, was a renowned sculptor, and is responsible for the Christopher Columbus statue in the center of New York City’s Columbus Circle. Just as his ancestors shaped their surroundings through art, Lawrence Russo would eventually do the same for the Wyoming Valley.

Russo was well-educated, and attended a number of esteemed institutions to round out his artistic background. He studied at the Beausz-Arts Institute of Design in New York, and went on to be a student of architectural design, painting and drawing at a number of the city’s

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