Side A: Giuseppe Moretti was born in Siena, Italy, and immigrated to the United States in 1888. For 40 years he sculpted monuments and heroic figures in the United States and Cuba, employing the Beaux-Arts technique, known for its neoclassical style that tended to be heroic and dramatic in nature. Mor etti, known for his eclectic personality and for always wearing a green tie, was a prolific artist with completion of 12 World War I memorials, 19 monumental works, six church sculptures, 24 memorial tablets, 14 cemetery memorials, 27 sculptures in marble, bronze, and aluminum, and 27 bronze statuettes. He created the Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Toronto in 1919 as a tribute to the 300 local citizens who answered the call for service during World War I. His other Ohio works include the John Patterson Monument (1925) in Dayton and statue of Simon Perkins (1895) in Akron.
Side B: Toronto’s Soldiers and Sailors Monument was dedicated on November 11, 1919. At that dedication, artist Giuseppe Moretti said, “A memorial should be erected to a single purpose as a tribute to the noble deeds of our heroes and should be inspired by the worthiness and sentiments of the human heart.” Indeed, the monument is a singularly important example of World War I military commemorative art in Ohio. It was the first of Moretti’s works devoted to the War and one of the first erected in the United States. It consists of a centrally positioned classical female figure representing Liberty flanked by a soldier and sailor in military uniforms of World War I. It was commissioned by the Toronto War Board in 1919 and restored and dedicated in 2004 as the Veterans Victory Pavilion by the Toronto Beautification Committee. The monument was accepted in the National Register of Historic Places on August 24, 2004.
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