Ugo Cipriani The Rudder, French Art Deco Terracotta, 1920

Ugo Cipriani is the 5th child of a sibship of nine. He lives in the Oltrarno district of Borgo San Frediano. After studying at the Florence Academy of Fine Arts, Cipriani worked with marble, terracotta, bronze and alabaster in the spirit of the 1920s Art Deco movement. One of his most famous works, a bronze monument (1919) by the Italian nationalist and irredentist Guglielmo Oberdan is on the square of the same name, in Florence. In 1935, Cipriani emigrated to France to escape the fascist regime of Mussolini. He lives in Paris as a political refugee and continues to create there until he died in 1960.