Silvana Cenci

Italian Silvana Cenci Signed Mid Century Modern Steel Gold Explosion Sculpture

Silvana Cenci, internationally renowned explosive sculptor, died October 1, 2000 at her home in Gray. Ms. Cenci, who was born in Florence, Italy, before World War II, married Stuart Church and moved to the U.S. permanently in 1959. She lived in Boston for many years, where she was a founder of the Brookline Art Center and a founding member of Summerthing. She exhibited widely throughout Europe and the U.S., and her work is in many museums and public and private collections. After moving to the States, Ms. Cenci began working with new technologies from the aircraft industry, and with explosives. She moved to Northwood, NH, in the early 60s, and pursued and perfected her revolutionary experimentation with explosive sculpture in stainless steel. A native of Italy, she lived most of her life in America where she became internationally known, primarily for using dynamite to blast images into stainless steel and finishing some pieces with pure gold. The pieces created with dynamite were often utilized by architects. One piece titled “Wheels in Motion” hung in Boston’s South Station. Education and Training Accademia di Belle Arti, Florence, Italy Academie de la Grande Chaumiere, Paris Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregon Selected Individual Exhibitions Galleria Numero, Florence, Italy Galleria San Carlo, Naples, Italy Galleria d'Arte Totti, Milan, Italy Galeria Beno, Zurich, Switzerland Nova Gallery, Boston Weeden Gallery, Boston Capricorn Gallery, New York City Roach-Hoffman Gallery, Naples, Florida Bristol Art Museum, Bristol, Rhode Island, retrospective Frank Tanzer Gallery, Boston Symphony Hall, Boston Musica Viva, Cambridge, Massachusetts Los Llanos Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff Selected Group Exhibitions "Oregon Artists," Lincoln County Art Center, Lincoln, Oregon "Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture," Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, Washington "West Coast Sculptors," Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon "Mostra Nazionale del Bianco e Nero," Museo Civico Castello Urasino, Catania, Italy "New England Art Today," Northwestern University, Boston "New England Sculptors Association," Boston City Hall, Boston "Silvana Cenci and Calvin Libby," Bristol Art Museum, Bristol, Rhode Island "Adele Seronde and Silvana Cenci," Weeden Gallery, Boston "Contemporary Italian Art-Italian Heritage," Boston City Hall, Boston, catalog "Explosion of Form, Color, Imagination: Works by Silvana Cenci Selected Awards First Honorable Mention, "Design in Transit," Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority Competition, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Massachusetts Research in Creative Art Grant, Blanche E. Colman Foundation, Boston, Massachusetts Statue of Victory, World Culture Prize for Letters, Arts and Sciences, Centro Studi e Ricerche delle Nazioni, Salsomaggiore Terme, Italy Harvard-pedigreed architect Harlow Carpenter built the Bundy in 1962. The venue's first decade was lively with exhibitions that featured a large cast of artists, including Dino Basaldella, Judith Brown, Silvana Cenci, Xavier Corbero...

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