Marcello Mascherini

Biography

Born in Udine, 14 September 1906. In 1912 he moves with his mother to Trieste, important city in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, being then refugees from the spring of 1915 as Italian Kingdom subjects. Thus, he lives in Isernia, in the central-southern region of Molise, taking the diploma at the local Regia Scuola d’arte applied to industry.

Having returned to Trieste in the end of 1920, he enrols at the Istituto Industriale “Alessandro Volta” in 1921 by attending courses in ornamental sculpture under the guidance of sculpture Professor Alfonso Canciani and taking diploma in 1924. Then he works at the atelier of sculptor Franco Atschko. His first showing occurs in Trieste in December 1924, while his first one-man show takes place at Circolo Alessandro Manzoni in Trieste, November 1925.

Since 1927 he would go on to be regularly present at the exhibitions organized by the Triestine, Regional and National Sindacato delle Belle Arti; at all first exhibitions of Roman Quadriennale since 1931, having personal rooms in 1948 and 1959-1960; at the Triennale in Milan in 1933 (awarded with the Silver Medal Certificate), 1936, 1951, 1960; at eleven shows of Venice International Biennale since 1934, having personal rooms in 1938, 1942, 1954, 1962; at Biennale d’Arte Triveneta and continuously from 1951 till 1973 at the International Competition of small bronze in Padova, as well as innumerable one-man and group exhibitions in Italy and abroad.

He participates in the national competition for the Monumento ai Caduti di Como in collaboration with Triestine architect Aldo Cervi in 1926. He starts obtaining tasks for public monuments in Trieste, Venice and Rome. Then He meets the sculptor Libero Andreotti, the painter Augusto Cernigoj and marking the beginning of his thirty-years collaboration with fame architects and artists in designing works of art for furnishings in passenger ships.

He starts winning prestigious awards from abroad: Diploma d’Onore in 1936 at the Italian Art Exhibition in Budapest, Silver Medal Certificate at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1937 and Gold Medal for Sculpture at the International Exhibition in Budapest in 1938, while is invited to the Universal Exhibition in New York in 1939.

Between the Thirties and Forties his sculpture style acquires rhythm and dynamism, reaching a plastic consciousness that is repeatedly awarded at the main Italian art exhibitions at that time: in 1940 he gets the Premio Unico of Italian Academy from Benito Mussolini; in 1941 the First Prize for Sculpture “Medardo Rosso”, thanks to the bronze Eva (1939) at the III Mostra del Sindacato Nazionale Fascista Belle Arti in Milano; in 1943, thanks to Venere marina (1942), the National First Sculpture Prize “Donatello” in Florence.

On Giò Ponti’s notice in 1940 he is invited to cooperate for the restoration of the rectorate at the University of Padua, the Palazzo del Bo, together with Arturo Martini, Massimo Campigli, Filippo De Pisis, Gino Severini, Bruno Saetti, Achille Funi.

He wins the First Prize for an Italian Sculptor at the XXV Biennale in Venice in 1950, shared with Luciano Minguzzi; then, the First Prize “Parigi” for Sculpture in Cortina d’Ampezzo. He trips to Paris for an important one-man exhibition at the Galerie Drouant – David in 1953.

He is member of Experts Committee appointed by the Venice Biennale for the participation of Italian artists at First International Biennal Art Exhibition of São Paulo (Brazil) in 1951. Hence he shows and wins the Purchase Prize by Modern Art Museum at II International Biennale of São Paulo in 1953. Since 1953 he participates at eight editions of Biennale of Sculpture in Antwerp (Belgium) and he gives two solo exhibitions in Tokyo in 1968 and 1972.

Also due to his very real participation to the International Competition for the Monument at Auschwitz (Poland) in 1958-1959, he starts to reconsider his style: since 1960 the extended, graceful and smooth forms of fifties turn into naturalistic and dramatic bronzes, often made of casts from karstic stones. At the XXXI Venice Biennale in 1962 the Commission appointed by Istituto Internazionale di Arte Liturgica confers on him the First International Prize for Sculpture (Sacred Art). He moves his atelier and residence from Trieste to Sistiana on the Carso (Karst) in 1967, going on with close relationships with several poets (among them, Lina Galli, Alfonso Gatto, Manlio Malabotta, Biagio Marin, Giuseppe Ungaretti), writers and intellectuals (among them, Riccardo Bacchelli, Stelio Crise, Gillo Dorfles, Agnoldomenico Pica, Vanni Scheiwiller, Fulvio Tomizza), as well as artists, art dealers, critics and art historians (among them, Umbro Apollonio, Giulio Carlo Argan, Fortunato Bellonzi, Jean Bouret, Bernhard Degenhart, Gian Alberto Dell’Acqua, Arturo Manzano, Giuseppe Marchiori, Giorgio Mascherpa, Alessandro Mozzambani, Guido Perocco, Erich Steingräber, Marco Valsecchi).

In the early Seventies Mascherini drastically renews his style, shrinking from the human figuration. Thus, the “Fiori” (Flowers) were born straight off between 1972 and 1974, forty or so bronzes of mythical – vegetative kind. He passes away in Padua on 19 February, 1983.