Frank Patania Sr. - Early Development
Frank Patania Sr.'s early life helped him develop into the artist he was destined to become. Born in Messina, Italy in 1899, he followed the European tradition of apprenticeship. At six years of age, he was apprenticed to a goldsmith, where he was assigned the most mundane jobs, tasks to be done repeatedly until proving his worth and his ability as a master. Once he'd mastered one job, he'd be assigned another, and another, and the process continued. According to Frank Jr., it was through this repetition that he, like his father before him, would learn two valuable lessons: first, a master's understanding of every aspect of the craft. And second, the discipline to put that understanding to work.

Frank Sr. left Italy with his mother and siblings at the age of ten, bound for New York City. One can only imagine the impression that the vast American metropolis must have had on a boy his age-at that time, millions were immigrating each year, with hundreds of thousands coming from Italy alone. This influx caused class conflict, and at times no small bit of anguish to those new to American culture, but still, the times were exciting and new and always changing. The Industrial Revolution was in full swing, and the nation was moving west, towards the exotic places portrayed by the works of artist Frederick Remington and photographer Edward Curtis.

For Patania, however, the West was in the distant future; he would remain in the East with his family for the next 15 years. During his early years in New York he was disappointed at being unable to find a job in his apprenticed trade. Child Labor Laws of the time were the primary reason for the lack of work. While looking for work Frank Sr. attended school learning English and finally obtaining work as a machinist. Shortly after WWI he finally landed a job in his chosen field, getting hired at the age of 19 as a jewelry designer for the New York firm of Goldsmith, Stern & Company.

Little, specifically, is known of Frank Sr.'s 6 years with Goldsmith, Stern, & Co., but conclusions may be drawn by looking at the company as a whole during that period. The firm, established in the late 1880s, was by 1919 the largest jewelry factory in New York, and claimed to be one of the largest in the world. They produced one of the most extensive and varied lines of jewelry of the era, and boasted a large diamond cutting facility as well. Obviously, working for a company such as this would have afforded Frank Sr. an extensive knowledge of then-current jewelry trends, including Edwardian and fine jewelry, Egyptian revival, and American and European Arts and Crafts. This interest in and awareness of current trends in jewelry would continue throughout his life.

Other early designs (Fig. 5, 6) by Frank Sr. also reflected a growing familiarity with Native American jewelry. The superiority of the material chosen for his pieces was always paramount, an appreciation for quality born not only of his childhood apprenticeship in Italy, but also from his time spent with Goldsmith, Stern, & Co.