Montana was raised in Sicily and came alone to the United States in 1906. His parents and siblings soon joined him and the family settled in Brooklyn where Montana found employment in a tin and zinc factory. He had acquired an interest in drawing and, in 1909, began taking classes at night at the Cooper Union school. His autobiography records his long hours of reading and studying at the New York Public Library--he made particular mention of being fascinated by William Rimmers' book on anatomy--and of his days spent copying at the Metropolitan Museum. He began experimenting with modeling and carving and he studied sculpting with George T. Brewster. To support himself during this period, he opened a photographic studio in his family's home in Brooklyn.
Following World War I and his graduation from the Cooper Union in 1915, Montana entered the competition for a war memorial being sponsored by the Unity Republican Club of Brooklyn. His design, Doughboy, won him the commisison and the work was unveiled in 1921. This was the first of several war memorials that Montana would design. Others include his Minute Man for East Providence, Rhode Island; Victory with Peace for Freedom Square, Brooklyn; and The Dawn of Glory for Highland Park, Brooklyn. When he won the commission for the Unity Republican Club monument, his success was assured. Subsequentely, he gave up his photographic studio in Brooklyn and reestablished himself as a professional sculptor in Manhattan in about 1922.
Montana began exhibiting at the Academy in the winter of 1918 when he showed a portrait bust of his brother (cat. no. 26). There, too, at the annual exhibition the following year, he received some attention for a group portrait in relief, posed for by his own family, entitled Refugees from Piave (cat. no. 276). He continued to exhibit at the Academy in every decade until his death.
Many of Montana's smaller works are at the Schumacher Gallery of Capital University, Columbus, Ohio, and at Fordham University, New York, where his fourteen Stations of the Cross were placed in 1952. In addition to sculpture, he was an avid painter and continued to produce oils, especially portraits, all of his life. He was a member of the National Sculpture Society and the Allied Artists of America.
