By Francesco Messina
Located in Buenos Aires, Olivos
Fantastic Sculpture of a couple of naked lovers kissing, Both nude.
Perfect size, will go perfect in any space.
Francesco Messina (15 December 1900 – 13 September 1995) was an Italian sculptor of the 20th century.
Francesco Messina was born at Linguaglossa in the Province of Catania in a very poor family. Growing up in Genoa, where he also studied and lived until he was 32, he then moved to Milan.
Art historians consider him one of the most important figurative sculptors of Novecento, together with Giacomo Manzù, Arturo Martini, Marino Marini. He is the author of some of the greatest works of the Novecento Italiano[citation needed] and his sculptures are displayed in the most famous museums, among which: Bern, Zürich, Gothenburg, Oslo, Munich, Paris, Barcelona, Berlin, São Paulo, Buenos Aires, Venice, Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Vienna, Washington, D.C. and Tokyo.
From 1922, he began exhibiting his work regularly at the Biennale Internazionale d'Arte in Venice and between 1926 and 1929 he took part in the expos organised by the art group Novecento Italiano in Milan. In 1932, he moved to Milan, where in 1934 he obtained a tenured professorship 1934 in Sculpture at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, of which he became the director within two years.
During those years, about him wrote Carlo Carrà:
Francesco Messina's sculpture is characterised by a simple and grandiose manner, by an idealistic and classic procedure, able to give life to forms which become "ideal images".
In the 1930s, Messina exhibited at important collective expos of Italian art in Barcelona, Berlin, Bern, Gothenburg, Munich, Oslo, Paris, São Paulo, Zurich, while executing various sculptures in many Italian cities. In 1936 he was appointed director of the Accademia di Brera, which position he will keep until 1944. His work was also part of the sculpture event in the art competition at the 1936 Summer Olympics.[
In 1938, Giorgio de Chirico in Rome and Salvatore Quasimodo in Turin presented two personal exhibitions of Messina's work. In 1942 he won the Sculpture Prize at the XXIII Biennale Internazionale d’arte of Venice, where he exhibited fifteen sculptures and seventeen drawings.
In 1943, Messina was appointed Academic Emeritus of Italy. On the collapse of the fascist regime, he was temporarily dismissed from the academy, only because he had been its director during the fascist period. However, by 1947 he had already regained his professorship. In the same period the artist took part in the Graphic & Sculpture Expo at Buenos Aires, in the Muller Gallery, achieve a noticeable success. In 1949 he exhibited at the 3rd Sculpture International held by the Philadelphia Museum of Art in Philadelphia, together with Marino Marini and Picasso.
Romantica, c. 1973 (Fondazione Cariplo)
In 1956 he participated with a personal exhibition at the XXVIII Biennale di Venezia. In 1963 he produced the great monument to Pope Pius XII for St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican, as well as the bust of Pietro Mascagni for the Teatro alla Scala. In the same year he was awarded the Michelangelo Prize for Sculpture in Florence.
In 1966 Messina was commissioned by Italian RAI to create the Cavallo morente (Dying Horse...
Category
Mid-20th Century Italian Mid-Century Modern Figurative Sculptures
