Adolfo Wildt

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Adolfo Wildt (1923)

Adolfo Wildt (born March 1, 1868 in Milan ; † May 12, 1931 ibid, Via Sottocorno 3) was an Italian sculptor . Despite its recognized importance for modern plastic and sculpture , his work is little known.

life and work

Bust of Mussolini
Self-Portrait (1909)

Wildt was the first of six children of an extremely poor family of Swiss origin who had lived in Lombardy for several generations . His father was a porter at the Milan City Hall . Adolfo had to drop out of school at the age of nine and contribute to a living as an assistant at a hairdresser and a goldsmith. At the age of eleven, he began an apprenticeship in the workshop of the sculptor Giuseppe Grandi , who made him familiar with marble . At the age of 18, he was already known for his skill in the fine processing of marble. From 1888 he worked at Federico Villa , who introduced him to the most famous Lombard sculptors of his time. At the same time, Wildt was able to continue his education in Milan's old town Brera , first at the High School for Applied Arts ( Scuola Superiore d'Arte Applicata ) and then at the Academy of Fine Arts ( Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera ).

In 1892 the first marble work was created, a woman's head, which is passed down with the names "La Vedova" and "Atte". From 1894 he worked for the German art collector Franz Rose , who signed him for 18 years. For an annual fixed fee of 4,000 lire, Wildt had to deliver the first copy of each new work to Rose. This financial security enabled Wildt to participate regularly in exhibitions in Milan, Munich , Zurich , Berlin and Dresden . At the same time, through Rose, he came into close contact with the German and Austrian Secession and was significantly influenced by them in his artistic development. In view of his admiration for Adolf von Hildebrand and Auguste Rodin , Wildt experimented with marble to give his works an opalescent transparency .

Wildt's bust of Cesare Battisti in the Bolzano Victory Monument (1927)

After the death of his patron Franz Rose in 1912, he was forced to enter the art market for the first time. In 1913 he was awarded the Prize of Prince Umberto ( Premio Principe Umberto ) for the large-scale design of a fountain ( La trilogia ) in the exhibition of the Munich Secession . The work was then acquired by the city of Milan and permanently installed in the courtyard of the Società Umanitaria ( Humanitarian Society ). From 1914 he exhibited at regular intervals. In addition, he was given a solo exhibition in Milan in 1919 Galleria Pesaro and participated in 1921, 1924 and 1926 with his works at the Biennale in Venice . In 1921 he founded the Marble Sculpture School ( Scuola del Marmo ), which was then incorporated into the Accademia Brera , where it has continued to develop in a three-year program since 1927. In 1929 he was accepted into the Accademia d'Italia by Benito Mussolini .

In the interior of the victory monument in Bolzano , which was unveiled in 1928, there are three busts of Wildt depicting the irredentists Cesare Battisti , Damiano Chiesa and Fabio Filzi . The bust of Benito Mussolini , which adorned the seat of the Fascist Party in Milan ( Casa del Fascio ) before it was destroyed in the course of the liberation in the spring of 1945 , also came from Wildt . With the bust he created one of the works of art of late Italian fascism with a particularly high recognition value.

Wildt's most famous students include a. Lucio Fontana , Fausto Melotti and Luigi Broggini .

Art historical importance

Starting from the romanticism of the late 19th century, Wildt devoted himself early to a sculpture influenced by the Secession and Art Nouveau , which can be characterized by complex symbolisms and an almost Gothic definition of its forms. The extremely smoothly polished surfaces give his marble busts an absolute purity and plastic integrity, which he tries to combine with the dramatic feeling of an almost paroxystic intensity. In this regard, Wildt stands on the threshold of Expressionism , which is particularly evident in the painfully shaken expression of his self-portrait from 1908.

Fonts

  • L'Arte del marmo. Milan 1921.

literature

Web links

Commons : Adolfo Wildt  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Exibart: Short biography and list of works Adolfo Wildt
  2. ^ Paola Mola: biography. In: Catalog for the Darmstadt exhibition. 1990 pp. 281-296, here: p. 296.
  3. ^ Paola Mola: Adolfo Wildt. A sculptor between tradition and modernity. In: Catalog for the Darmstadt exhibition. 1990 pp. 13–40, here: p. 13.
  4. ^ Paola Mola: Adolfo Wildt. A sculptor between tradition and modernity. In: Catalog for the Darmstadt exhibition. 1990 pp. 13–40, here: p. 14.
  5. ↑ a b Sabrina Michielli, Hannes Obermair (Red.): BZ '18 –'45: one monument, one city, two dictatorships. Accompanying volume for the documentation exhibition in the Bolzano Victory Monument . Folio Verlag, Vienna-Bozen 2016, ISBN 978-3-85256-713-6 , p. 111 .
  6. ^ Giovanna Poletti: E il busto di Mussolini andrà all'asta. In: Corriere della Sera . October 21, 1994.
personal data
SURNAME Wildt, Adolfo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian sculptor
DATE OF BIRTH March 1, 1868
PLACE OF BIRTH Milan
DATE OF DEATH May 12, 1931
Place of death Milan