Early Life And Education
Prentice was born on October 21, 1944 in New York City. He is the third child of four children born to Spelman Prentice1, grandson of John D. Rockefeller, and Countess Dorothy de Premio Real (American born Dorothy Jean Ryan). He is the grandson of Ezra Parmelee Prentice, a pioneer in livestock breeding. After his parents’ divorce in 1950, he and his siblings moved with their mother to Europe. Over the next twenty years, De Premio Real relocated with her children. to numerous residences subsequent to four more marriages. He briefly attended the Buckley School in New York, then spent a year at Fessenden School in Newton, MA. He was sent in 1958 as boarding student to St. George’s School in Newport, Rhode Island, where he played football and ice hockey. Prentice graduated from St. George’s in 1963. He attended Middlebury College, in Middlebury, VT and obtained a BA in Art History there in 1967. The summer of his sophomore year he met painter Elena Coon, a nineteen-year old aspiring artist, who encouraged him to explore his creative talent. In the summer of his junior year at Middlebury he began painting, after taking a drawing class at Dartmouth. He also married Elena that year.
Training
Prentice and his wife moved to Barcelona, Spain in the summer of 1967 and he tried to enroll, unsuccessfully, in art school to study sculpting. He moved to Paris, France in 1968, in the midst of the student occupation protests and civil unrest. He enrolled in the École des Beaux-Arts and studied sculpture under Louie Leygue. According to Prentice, he left the Beaux-Arts, “due to a complete lack of order in the classroom” and began training with and assisting the sculptor André Del Debbio at his studio in L’Impasse Ronsin in the Vaugirard district. In 1969 he creates his own studio at Rue Basfroi.
Thirty Years in Paris
During the 1970’s, Prentice was prolific, participating in a succession of important group exhibits and symposiums which eventually led to his first private and public commissions and one-man show.
He created three versions of his sculpture “Zig Zag” in 1972. One was gifted to his father and remains in the family. One was sold to famed designer Givenchy. The third was sold at the Elizabeth Frank Gallery (Knokke, Belgium) and remains in a private collection.
He received his first public commission in 1974 (Stone Flower) from Mayor’s Office of Sainte Geneviéve des Bois. He was one of ten sculptors chosen to participate (the only one representing France) in the International Stone Symposium (Vancouver, Canada) in 1975.
In 1975 his piece, Fleur de Peche was purchased by renown art collector Sao Schlumberger. It was then given in 1992 on loan to the French Consulate in Barcelona, Spain. In 1977, Mrs. Schlumberger commissioned a granite outdoor dining table for her home, Le Clos, Petit Fiorentina, in Cap Ferat, France. Of his first one-man show in 1979 at the Gérard Laubie Gallery (Paris). The International Herald Tribune writes (May 19-20, 1979) of Prentice’s first one-man show at Galerie Gerard Laubie on Rue Brisemiche in Paris, “Prentice appears to be both a very able craftsman and an artist with the ability to create evocative forms that have a life of their own.”
Prentice began to garner significant European press in the 1980’s which contributed to his significant increase in public/private commissions. In the September 1986 issue of Vogue Decoration, Serge-Fortis Rolle writes, “Sculptor and demiurge, the American Michael Prentice brings forth Celtic granite, magnificent monumental works where magic and the sacred mingle.”
Early in the decade, he purchased a nineteenth century laundry at 14 Rue de la Forge Royale, where he created most of his works. According to French journalist Martine Dassault in Decoration Internationale (September, 1987) “Le repaire de Michael Prentice, 43 ans, sculpteur, Rue de la Forge-Royale à Paris, m’est apparu comme la Dernière survivance d’une époque tonnante et mystérieuse, que je croyais à jamais oubliée, celle de l’âge de pierre.” (“The lair of Michael Prentice, 43, sculptor, Rue de la Forge-Royale in Paris, appeared to me as the last survivor of a thunderous and mysterious era, that I thought had been forgotten, that of the Stone Age.”) Prentice also continues to prolifically exhibit in one-man and group shows throughout the decade.
In 1982, Pierre Berge and his partner Yves St. Laurent purchased Prentice’s sculpture “Pingouin” through the show at the Elisabeth Franck Gallery in Belgium. British Petroleum purchased his sculpture “Seal” of their permanent gallery in Brussels. In 1988 he bought a property in Alcudia on the island of Mallorca off the coast of Spain which he developed into his private olive farm and family compound.
His divorce from Elena Coon was finalized in 1989. The same year, he threw a 300-person celebration, “The King is Dead- Long Live the King,” at his studio in Paris, during which a massive fire broke out resulting in significant damage and loss
of art.
In 1989, he moved to the state of Kerala, India and established a 70-person carving studio in Cochin. Prentice lived between Paris and Kerala for next three years.
Prentice continued to garner significant public and private commissions throughout the 1990’s while also continuing to show. He remarried again in 1999.
Philanthropy and Personal Life
He moved to Houston, TX in 2000 to be near his sister and “retired” from sculpting in 2002.
In 2013 he founded MPVP Holdings, a real estate investment company focused on the Sharpstown area of Houston. Along with real estate, his business interests include investing in innovative companies such as, Mesuron, a medical device company.
Prentice’s initiatives to enhance Houston’s Sharpstown neighborhood have received acclaim. His creation of the Sharpstown Prize for Architecture, in partnership with the Architecture School of the University of Houston, resonated with city of Houston officials as well as the art and architecture community. Prentice also commissioned previous art installations under the auspices of Seeds of Sharpstown, that resulted in extensive media attention. In 2020, he founded The Alta Arts, a non-profit organization focused on enhancing and elevating art and architecture in Southwest Houston. The 501c3 operates out of Studio Space, a building in the Gulfton area of Houston owned by Prentice. He named Alta Arts after his grandmother, Alta Rockefeller Prentice, whose former home added to the site of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
He serves on the board of Museo Sa Bassa Blanca in Mallorca, Spain where he has a farm.
He has three children from his first marriage, two children from his second and eight grandchildren. He splits his time between his olive farm in Mallorca, Spain and his homes in Texas.
