COOK COUNTY CRIMINAL COURTHOUSE — A well-known Chicago muralist suffered multiple stab wounds when his daughter allegedly attacked him and another artist with steak knives at the Zhou B Art Center in Bridgeport, prosecutors said Friday.
Isabella Maschietto, 22, stood in court Friday shaking and crying as a Cook County judge told her she was being charged with two counts of attempted murder.
Maschietto went to visit her father, Romano Maschietto, at his studio in the center at 1029 W. 35th St. Wednesday morning, according to prosecutors and court records. She hid two steak knives from the kitchen in a book and walked over to the neighboring studio, where another artist was working.
After briefly making "small talk" with the 43-year-old man, she told the artist that she intended to kill him and pulled out one of the knives, Assistant State's Attorney Erin Antonietti alleged.
She allegedly struck the man in the chest, missing his heart by only a few centimeters. When her father rushed to intervene, the other artist fled, prosecutors said.
Romano Maschietto, who tried to calm his daughter as she repeatedly plunged the knife into a studio wall, was also stabbed multiple times, prosecutors said.
When police arrived, it took six officers to restrain Isabella Maschietto, prosecutors said. She later allegedly admitted to taking drugs the previous day.
One Friday, a Cook County judge ordered her held on $2 million bail. Her father remained hospitalized.
Romano Maschietto is a well-known muralist who's been commissioned repeatedly by the city since the 1970s and served as artist in residence at the DuSable Museum. In the late 1980s, the city chose him to paint a 60-foot high, 44-foot wide colorful mural on the side of a Michigan Avenue hotel.
According to a 1987 Tribune profile, the Austrian-born artist "moved to Chicago in 1955. After a stint in the military, he lived in New York and San Francisco before returning to Chicago in 1974. In 1976, he received the first of several city grants to work with inner-city children and paint the embankments at Hubbard Street."
Romano Maschietto has studios at the Zhou B Art Center, an 85,000-square-foot building started by a pair of highly-acclaimed Chinese artists. It is home to multiple galleries, studios, art classes and exhibitions and has played host to galas honoring the Daley political dynasty.
Wednesday's bloodshed left the gallery's tight-knit arts community in shock, with some artists opting out of Friday night's monthly "Third Friday" art soiree.
