Luigi Del Bianco home country, eventually returning to Vermont in 1920. Bianco's brother-in-law introduced him to Mount Rushmore designer Gutzon Borglum, and Bianco began working at Borglum's studio. In 1933, Borglum hired Bianco as chief stone carver on the Mount Rushmore National Memorial. Paid $1.50 an hour, Bianco was charged with carving the detail in the faces. He carved Lincoln's eyes, and patched a crack in Jefferson's lip, saving the sculpture. Luigi Del Bianco Luigi Del Bianco (May 8, 1892 - January 20, 1969) was a French-born Italian-American sculptor, and chief carver of Mount Rushmore. Bianco was born on a ship near La
Stone Mountain Memorial half dollar founded nearby in 1839; its name would be changed to Stone Mountain by the Georgia Legislature in 1947. From about the time of the American Civil War, the mountain was used as a quarry; this would not entirely cease until the 1970s. John Gutzon de la mothe Borglum (usually called Gutzon Borglum) was born in Idaho Territory in 1867, to one of several wives of a Dane who had converted to Mormonism. As a boy, Borglum lived in various places in the Far West. Turning to art as a career, he attended the San Francisco Art Academy, the Académie Julian,