Maria S Valiante

Aventura -- Maria S. Valiante, 93, founder of the Coconut Grove Art Festival, Valiante Art Galleries in Hialeah and Coconut Grove, and winner of the Grand Prix of the United Nations de Paris representing the United States in Monaco in 1966, sadly passed away on February 26 after a severe fall. The internationally renowned artist and set designer who served as the vice-president and scenic design director for the Orange Bowl Easter Pageant during the 1960s and 70s, also designed sets for the Jackie Gleason television show from Miami.

Born in Tampa in 1926 to Delores Fiorenzana and Avelino Santos, a cigar importer, the young artist grew up in New York City where she graduated from the famous Art Student's League and attended Parsons School of Design before making her professional mark on the advertising world and drawing cartoons for the Casper the Ghost series. She married Nicholas Valiante in 1948 and moved to Miami with her husband and two young daughters in 1955. She had a lifelong love affair with Miami and dedicated herself to establishing Miami and the surrounding areas as a beacon of quality in the art world. She served as the first Art Commissioner of Hialeah under Mayor Henry Milander, founded the Aetna Art Guild for professional artists, concurrent with opening the Valiante Art Gallery in Hialeah and one in Coconut Grove, and facilitated the artistic cultural exchange with Hialeah's "Sister City", Managua, Nicaragua.

Working primarily in oil paints, in 1966 she was selected from a pool of four thousand applicants as one of the one hundred artists representing the western hemisphere to

compete against an additional one hundred artists from the eastern hemisphere in the international art competition held in Monaco. Mrs. Valiante's work "The Park Bench" won second place in the world and established her an international virtuoso painter. She carried on her international theme as she led art teaching tours in Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Italy.

During the 1970s to the 1990s, Mrs. Valiante became the exclusive art teacher for the rich and famous at The Surf Club and The Bath Club on Miami Beach, and the Indian Creek Country Club in Indian Creek. During her later years, she devoted herself to creating a series of religious paintings, the basis for which she researched historically and biblically. Samples of her work and her historical biography can be viewed on her website, MariaValiante.com.

She will be terribly missed by her survivors: her daughters, Denise Lang-Grant and husband Alan, Valerie Harnden and husband Craig, and Michelle Kelly and husband Paul. Also, her grandchildren, Christopher Lang, Tiffany Rosengrant (and husband David), Nicholas Kelly (and wife Sara), Lauren Signorelli (and husband John), and Daniel Kelly (and partner Doug Thum). She will also be missed by her great-grandchildren, Alexandria and Jonathan Rosengrant; Saphir, Josiah, Matthew and Logan Kelly; and Lucas, Amelia and Aubrey Signorelli.

Funeral Services will be held at the Riverside Gordon Memorial Chapel, 17250 W. Dixie Highway beginning at 10am on Wednesday, March 4th.